
Olass 
Book- 






(gnglisl) MXtn of Cetters 

EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY 



ALEXANDER POPE 



LESLIE STEPHEN 



1:^}- 




NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN SQUARE 

ISSO 



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PREFATOEY NOTE. 



The life and writings of Pope have been discussed in a literature 
more voluminous than that which exists in the case of almost any 
other English man of letters. No biographer, however, has pro- 
duced a definitive or exhaustive work. It seems, therefore, desirable 
to indicate the main authorities upon which such a biographer would 
have to rely, and which have been consulted for the purpose of the 
following necessarily brief and imperfect sketch. 

The first life of Pope was a catchpenny book, by William Ayre, 
published in 1745, and remarkable chiefly as giving the first version 
of some demonstrably erroneous statements, unfortunately adopted 
by later writers. In 1751, Warburton, as Pope's literary executor, 
published the authoritative edition of the poet's works, with notes 
containing some biographical matter. In 1769 appeared a life by 
Owen Ruffhead, who wrote under Warburton's inspiration. This is 
a dull and meagre performance, and much of it is devoted to an at- 
tack — partly written by Warburton himself — upon the criticisms ad- 
vanced in the first volume of Joseph Warton's Essay on Pope. War- 
ton's first volume was published in 1756; and it seems that the 
dread of Warburton's wrath counted for something in the delay of 
the second volume, which did not appear till 1782. The Essay con- 
tains a good many anecdotes of interest. Warton's edition of Pope 
— the notes in which are chiefly drawn from the Essay — was pub- 
lished in 1797. The Life by Johnson appeared in 1781; it is ad- 
mirable in many ways ; but Johnson had taken the least possible 
trouble in ascertaining facts. Both Warton and Johnson had be- 
fore them the manuscript collections of Joseph Spence, who had 
known Pope personally during the last twenty years of his life, and 
wanted nothing but literary ability to have become an efficient Bos- 



vi PREFATORY NOTE. 

well. Spence's anecdotes, which were not published till 1820, give 
the best obtainable information upon many points, especially in re- 
gard to Pope's childhood. This ends the list of biographers who 
were in any sense contemporary with Pope. Their statements must 
be checked and supplemented by the poet's own letters, and innu- 
merable references to him in the literature of the time. In 1806 
appeared the edition of Pope by Bowles, with a life prefixed. Bowles 
expressed an unfavourable opinion of many points in Pope's charac- 
ter, and some remarks by Campbell, in his specimens of English 
poets, led to a controversy (1819-1826) in which Bowles defended 
his views against Campbell, Byron, Roscoe, and others, and which in- 
cidentally cleared up some disputed questions. Roscoe, the author 
of the life of Leo X., published his edition of Pope in 1824. A life 
is contained in the first volume, but it is a feeble performance; and 
the notes, many of them directed against Bowles, are of little value. 
A more complete biography was published by R. Carruthers (with 
an edition of the works), in 1854. The second, and much improved, 
edition appeared in 1857, and is still the most convenient life of 
Pope, though Mr. Carruthers was not fully acquainted with the last 
results of some recent investigations, which have thrown a new light 
upon the poet's career. 

The writer who took the lead in these inquiries was the late Mr. 
Dilke. Mr. Dilke published the results of his investigations (which 
were partly guided by the discovery of a previously unpublished 
correspondence between Pope and his friend Caryll), in the Afhcmenm 
and Kotcs and Queries, at various intervals, from 1854 to 1860. His 
contributions to the subject have been collated in the first volume of 
the Papers of a Critic, edited by his grandson, the present Sir Charles 
W. Dilke, in 1875. Meanwhile Mr. Croker had been making an ex- 
tensive collection of materials for an exhaustive edition of Pope's 
works, in Avhich he was to be assisted by Mr. Peter Cunningham. 
After Croker's death these materials were submitted by Mr. Murray 
to Mr. Whitwell Elwin, whose own researches have greatly extended 
our knowledge, and who had also the advantage of Mr. Dilke's ad- 
vice. Mr. Elwin began, in 1871, the publication of the long-promised 
edition. It was to have occupied ten volumes — five of poems and 
five of correspondence, the latter of which was to include a very 
large proportion of previously unpublished matter. Unfortunately 
for all students of English literature, only two volumes of poetry 



PREFATORY NOTE. vii 

and three of correspondence have appeared. The notes and prefaces, 
however, contain a vast amount of mformation, which clears up 
many previously disputed points in the poet's career; and it is to be 
hoped that the materials collected for the remaining volumes will 
not be ultimately lost. It is easy to dispute some of Mr. El win's 
critical opinions, but it would be impossible to speak too highly of 
the value of his investigations of facts. Without a study of his 
work, no adequate knowledge of Pope is attainable. 

The ideal biographer of Pope, if he ever appears, must be endowed 
with the qualities of an acute critic and a patient antiquarian ; and 
it would take years of labour to work out all the minute problems 
connected with the subject. All that I can profess to have done is 
to have given a short summary of the obvious facts, and of the main 
conclusions established by the evidence given at length in the writ- 
ings of Mr. Dilke and Mr. Elwin. I have added such criticisms as 
seemed desirable in a work of this kind, and I must beg pardon by 
anticipation if I have fallen into inaccuracies in relating a story so 
full of pitfalls for the unwary. 

L.S. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

FAGR 

Early Years 1 

CHAPTER II. 
First Period of Pope's Literary Career 21 

CHAPTER III. 
Pope's Homer 61 

CHAPTER IV. 
Pope at Twickenham 81 

CHAPTER V. 
The War with the Duxces Ill 

CHAPTER VI. 
Correspondence 136 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Essay on Man 158 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Epistles and Satires 180 

CHAPTER IX. 
The End 205 



POPE. 

CHAPTER I. 

EARLY YEARS. 

The father of Alexander Pope was a London mercliant, a 
devout Catholic, and not improbably a convert to Cathol- 
icism. His mother was one of seventeen children of Wil- 
liam Turnei", of York ; one of her sisters was the wife of 
Cooper, the well-known portrait - painter. Mrs. Cooper 
was the poet's godmother ; she died when he was five 
years old, leaving to her sister, Mrs. Pope, " a grinding- 
stone and muller," and their mother's " picture in lim- 
ning ;" and to her nephew, the little Alexander, all her 
" books, pictures, and medals set in gold or otherwise." 

In after-life the poet made some progress in acquiring 
the art of painting ; and the bequest suggests the possi- 
bility that the precocious child had already given some in- 
dications of artistic taste. Affectionate eyes were certain- 
ly on the watch for any symptoms of developing talent. 
Pope was born on May 21, 1688 — the annus mirabilis 
which introduced a new political era in England, and was 
fatal to the hopes of ardent Catholics, About the same 



2 POPE. [chap. 

time, partly, perhaps, in consequence of the catastrophe, 
Pope's father retired from business, and settled at Bin- 
field, a village two miles from Wokingham and nine from 
Windsor. It is near Bracknell, one of Shelley's brief 
perching places, and in such a region as poets might love, 
if poetic praises of rustic seclusion are to be taken serious- 
ly. To the east were the " forests and green retreats " of 
Windsor; and the wild heaths of Bagshot, Chobham, and 
Aldershot stretched for miles to the south. Some twelve 
miles off in that direction, one may remark, lay Moor 
Park, where the sturdy pedestrian. Swift, was living with 
Sir W. Temple during great part of Pope's childhood ; 
but it does not appear that his walks ever took him to 
Pope's neighbourhood, nor did he see, till some years later, 
the lad with whom he was to form one of the most fa- 
mous of literary friendships. The little household was pre- 
sumably a very quiet one, and remained fixed at Binfield 
for twenty-seven years, till the son had grown to manhood 
and celebrity. From the earliest period he seems to have 
been a domestic idol. He was not an only child, for he 
had a half-sister, by his father's side, who must have been 
considerably older than himself, as her mother died nine 
years before the poet's birth. But he was the only child 
of his mother, and his parents concentrated upon him an 
affection which he returned with touching ardour and per- 
sistence. They were both forty -six in the year of his 
birth. lie inherited headaches from his mother, and a 
crooked figure from his father. A nurse who shared 
their care lived with him for many years, and was buried 
by him, with an affectionate epitaph, in 1725. The fam- 
ily tradition represents him as a sweet-tempered child, and 
says that he was called the " little nightingale " from the 
beauty of his voice. As the sickly, solitary, and preco- 



I.] EARLY YEARS. 3 

cious infant of elderly parents, we may guess that he was 
not a little spoilt, if only in the technical sense. 

The religion of the family made their seclusion from 
the world the more rigid, and by consequence must have 
strengthened their mutual adhesiveness. Catholics were 
then harassed by a legislation which would be condemned 
by any modern standard as intolerably tyrannical. What- 
ever apology may be urged for the legislators on the score 
of contemporary prejudices or special circumstances, their 
best excuse is that their laws were rather intended to sat- 
isfy constituents, and to supply a potential means of de- 
fence, than to be carried into actual execution. It does 
not appear that the Popes had to fear any active molesta- 
tion in the quiet observance of their religious duties. Yet 
a Catholic was not only a member of a hated minority, re- 
garded by the rest of his countrymen as representing the 
evil principle in politics and religion, but was rigorously 
excluded from a public career, and from every position of 
honour or authority. In times of excitement the severer 
laws might be put in force. The public exercise of the 
Catholic religion was forbidden, and to be a Catholic was 
to be predisposed to tlie various Jacobite intrigues which 
still liad many chances in their favour. When the Pre- 
tender was expected in 1744, a proclamation, to which 
Pope thought it decent to pay obedience, forbade the ap- 
pearance of Catholics within ten miles of London ; and in 
1*730 we find him aiaking interest on behalf of a nephew, 
■who had been prevented from becoming an attorney be- 
cause the judges were rigidly enforcing the oaths of su- 
premacy and allegiance. 

The Catholics had to pay double taxes, and were pro- 
hibited from acquiring real property. The elder Pope, 
according to a certainly inaccurate story, had a conscien- 



4 POPE. [cuAP. 

tious objection to investing his money in the funds of 
a Protestant government, and, therefore, having converted 
his capital into coin, put it in a strong-box, and took it 
out as he wanted it. The old merchant was not quite so 
helpless, for we know that he had investments in the 
French rentes, besides other sources of income ; but the 
story probably reflects the fact that his religious disquali- 
fications hampered even his financial position. 

Pope's character was affected in many ways by the fact 
of his belonging to a sect thus harassed and restrained. 
Persecution, like bodily infirmity, has an ambiguous in- 
fluence. If it sometimes generates in its victims a heroic 
hatred of oppression, it sometimes predisposes them to 
the use of the weapons of intrigue and falsehood, by 
which the weak evade the tyranny of the strong. If 
under that discipline Pope learnt to love toleration, he 
was not untouched by the more demoralizing influences 
of a life passed in an atmosphere of incessant plotting 
and evasion. A more direct consequence was his ex- 
clusion from the ordinary schools. The spirit of the 
rickety lad might have been broken by the rough train- 
ing of Eton or Westminster in those days; as, on the 
other hand, he might have profited by acquiring a live- 
lier perception of the meaning of that virtue of fair- 
play, the appreciation of which is held to be a set-off 
against the brutalizing influences of our system of pub- 
lic education. As it was. Pope was condemned to a 
desultory education. He picked up some rudiments of 
learning from the family priest; he was sent to a school 
at Tvvyford, where he is said to have got into trouble 
for writing a lampoon upon his master; he went for a 
short time to another in London, where he gave a more 
creditable if less characteristic proof of his poetical prccoc- 



I.] EARLY YEARS. 5 

ity. Like other lads of genius, he put together a kind of 
play — a combination, it seems, of the speeches in Ogilby's 
Iliad — and got it acted by his schoolfellows. These brief 
snatches of schooling, however, counted for little. Pope 
settled at home at the early age of twelve, and plunged 
into the delights of miscellaneous reading with the ardour 
of precocious talent. He read so eagerly that his feeble 
constitution threatened to break down, and when about 
seventeen, he despaired of recovery, and wrote a farewell 
to his friends. One of them, an Abbe Southcote, applied 
for advice to the celebrated Dr. Radcliffe, who judiciously 
prescribed idleness and exercise. Pope soon recovered, 
and, it is pleasant to add, showed his gratitude long af- 
terwards by obtaining for Southcote, through Sir Robert 
Walpole, a desirable piece of French preferment. Self- 
guided studies have their advantages, as Pope himself ob- 
served, but they do not lead a youth through the dry 
places of literature, or stimulate him to severe intellectual 
training. \ Pope seems to have made some hasty raids 
into philosophy and theology ; he dipped into Locke, and 
found him " insipid ;" he went through a collection of the 
controversial literature of the reign of James IL, which 
seems to have constituted the paternal library, and was 
alternately Protestant and Catholic, according to the last 
book which he had read. But it was upon poetry and 
pure literature that he flung himself with a genuine appe- 
tite. He learnt languages to get at the story, unless a 
translation offered an easier path, and followed wherever 
fancy led, " like a boy gathering flowers in the fields and 
woods." 

It is needless to say that he never became a scholar in 
the strict sense of the term. Voltaire declared that he 
could hardly read or speak a word of French ; and his 



6 rOPE. [chap. 

knowledge of Greek would have satisfied Bentley as lit- 
tle as his French satisfied Voltaire. Yet he must have 
been fairly conversant with the best known French liter- 
ature of the time, and he could probably stumble through 
Homer with the help of a ci'ib and a guess at the gener- 
al meaning. He says himself that at this early period 
he went through all the best critics ; all the French, Eng- 
lish and Latin poems of any name ; " Homer and some 
of the greater Greek poets in the original," and Tasso and 
Ariosto in translations. 

Pope, at any rate, acquired a wide knowledge of Eng- 
lish poetry. Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were, he says, 
his great favourites in the order named, till he w-as twelve. 
Like so many other poets, he took infinite delight in the 
Faerij Queen; but Dryden, the great poetical luminary 
of his own day, naturally exercised a predominant influ- 
ence upon his mind. He declared that he had learnt 
versification wholly from Dryden's works, and always 
mentioned his name with reverence. Many scattered re- 
marks reported by Spense, and the still more conclusive 
evidence of frequent appropriation, show him to have 
been familiar with the poetry of the preceding century, 
and with much that had gone out of fashion in his time, 
to a degree in which he was probably excelled by none of 
his successors, with the exception of Gray. Like Gray, 
he contemplated at one time the history of English poe- 
try, which was in some sense executed by Warton. It is 
characteristic, too, that he early showed a critical spirit. 
From a boy, he says, he could distinguish between sweet- 
ness and softness of numbers — Dryden exemplifying soft- 
ness, and Waller sweetness ; and the remark, whatever its 
value, shows that he had been analysing his impressions 
and reflecting upon the technical secrets of his art. 



I.] EARLY YEARS. 7 

Sucli study naturally suggests the trembling aspiration, 
"I, too, am a poet," Pope adopts with apparent sinceri- 
ty the Ovidian phrase, 

"As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, 
I lisp'd in numbers, for the nmnbers came." 

His father corrected his early performances, and, when 
not satisfied, sent him back with the phrase, " These are 
not good rhymes." He translated any passages that 
struck him in his reading, excited by the examples of 
Ogilby's Homer and Sandys' Ovid. His boyish ambition 
prompted him, before he was fifteen, to attempt an epic 
poem ; the subject was Alcander, Prince of Rhodes, driven 
from his honie by Deucalion, father of Minos ; and the 
work was modestly intended to emulate in different pas- 
sages the beauties of Milton, Cowley, Spenser, Statins, 
Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and Claudian. Four books of this 
poem survived for a long time, for Pope had a more than 
parental fondness for all the children of his brain, and al- 
ways had an eye to possible reproduction. Scraps from 
this early epic were worked into the Essay on Criticism 
and the Dunciad. This couplet, for example, from the 
last work comes straight, we are told, from Alcander, — 

" As man's Mfcanders to the vital spring 
Roll all their tides, then back their circles bring." 

Another couplet, preserved by Spense, will give a suffi- 
cient taste of its quality : — 

" Shields, helms, and swords all jangle as they hang, 
And sound formidinous with angry clang." 

After this we shall hardly censure Atterbury for ap- 
proving (perhaps suggesting) its destruction in later years. 



8 POPE. [chap. 

Pope long meditated another epic, relating the foundation 
of the English government by Brutus of Troy, with a su- 
perabundant display of didactic morality and religion. 
Happily this dreary conception, though it occupied much 
thought, never came to the birth. 

The time soon came when these tentative flights were 
to be superseded by more serious efforts. Pope's ambi- 
tion was directed into the same channel by his innate 
propensities, and by the accidents of his position. No 
man ever displayed a more exclusive devotion to litera- 
ture, or was more tremblingly sensitive to the charm of 
literary glory. His zeal was never distracted by any 
rival emotion. Almost from his cradle to his grave his 
eye was fixed unremittingly upon the sole purpose of his 
life. The whole energies of his mind were absorbed in 
the struggle to place his name as high as possible in that 
temple of fame, which he painted after Chaucer in one 
of his early poems. External conditions pointed to let- 
ters as the sole path to eminence, but it was precisely the 
path for which he had admirable qualifications. The 
sickly son of the Popish tradesman was cut off from the 
Bar, the Senate, and the Church. Physically contemptible, 
politically ostracized, and in a humble social position, he 
could yet win this dazzling prize and force his way with 
his pen to the highest pinnacle of contemporary fame. 
Without adventitious favour, and in spite of many bitter 
antipathies, he was to become the acknowledged head of 
English literature, and the welcome companion of all the 
most eminent men of his time. Though he could not 
foresee his career from the start, he worked as vigorously 
as if the goal had already been in sight ; and each suc- 
cessive victory in the field of letters was realized the more 
keenly from his sense of the disadvantages in face of 



I.J EARLY YEARS. 9 

wliicli it bad been won. In tracing his rapid ascent, wo 
shall certainly find reason to donbt bis proud assertion, — 

" That, if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways ;" 

but it is impossible for any lover of literature to grudge 
admiration to this singular triumph of pure intellect over 
external disadvantages, and tbe still more depressing influ- 
ences of incessant physical suffering. 

Pope bad, indeed, certain special advantages which be 
was not slow in turning to account. In one respect even 
bis religion helped him to emerge into fame. There was 
naturally a certain free-masonry amongst the Catholics al- 
lied by fellow-feeling under tbe general antipathy. The 
relations between Pope and bis co-religionists exercised a 
material influence upon his later life. Within a few miles 
of Binfield lived the Blounts of Mapledurbam, a fine old 
Elizabethan mansion on tbe banks of the Thames, near 
Reading, which bad been held by a royalist Blount in the 
civil war against a parliamentary assault. It was a more 
interesting circumstance to Pope that Mr. Lister Blount, 
the then representative of the family, had two fair daugh- 
ters, Teresa and Martha, of about tbe poet's age. Another 
of Pope's Catholic acquaintances was John Caryll, of West 
Grinstead in Sussex, nephew of a Caryll who bad been the 
representative of James II. at the Court of Rome, and 
who, following bis master into exile, received tbe honours 
of a titular peerage and held office in tbe melancholy court 
of the Pretender. In such circles Pope might have been 
expected to imbibe a Jacobite and Catholic horror of 
Whigs and freethinkers. In fact, however, he belonged 
from his youth to the followers of Gallio, and seems to 
have paid to religious duties just as much attention as 
would satisfy his parents. Ilis mind was really given to 



10 rOPE. [chap. 

literature ; and be found liis earliest patron in his imme- 
diate neighbourhood. This was Sir W. Trumbull, who 
had retired to his native village of Easthampstead in 1697, 
after being ambassador at the Porte under James II., and 
Secretary of State under William III. Sir William made 
acquaintance with the Popes, praised the father's artichokes, 
and was delighted with the precocious son. The old di- 
plomatist and the young poet soon became fast friends, 
took constant rides together, and talked over classic and 
modern poetry. Pope made Trumbull acquainted with 
Milton's juvenile poems, and Trumbull encouraged Pope 
to follow in Milton's steps. lie gave, it seems, the first 
suggestion to Pope that he should translate Homer; and 
he exhorted his young friend to preserve his health by fly- 
ing from tavern company — tanquam ex incendio. Another 
early patron was William Walsh, a Worcestershire country 
gentleman of fortune and fashion, who condescended to 
dabble in poetry after the manner of Waller, and to write 
remonstrances upon Celia's cruelt)', verses to his mistress 
against marriage, epigrams, and pastoral eclogues. He was 
better known, however, as a critic, and had been declared 
by Dryden to be, without flattery, the best in the nation. 
Pope received from him one piece of advice which has 
become famous. We had had great poets — so said the 
" knowing Walsh," as Pope calls him — " but never one 
great poet that was correct ;" and he accordingly recom- 
mended Pope to make correctness his great aim. The ad- 
vice doubtless impressed the young man as the echo of his 
own convictions. Walsh died (1708) before the effect of 
his suggestion had become fully perceptible. 

The acquaintance with Walsh was due to Wycherley, 
who had submitted Pope's Pastorals to his recognized crit- 
ical authority. Pope's intercourse with Wycherley and 



I.] EARLY YEARS. 11 

another early friend, Henry Cromwell, had a more impor- 
tant bearing upon his early career. He kept up a corre- 
spondence with each of these friends, whilst he was still 
passing through his probationary period ; and the letters, 
published long afterwards under singular circumstances to 
be hereafter related, give the fullest revelation of his char- 
acter and position at this time. Both Wycherley and 
Cromwell were known to the Englefields of Whiteknights, 
near Reading, a Catholic family, in which Pope first made 
the acquaintance of Martha Blount, whose mother was a 
daughter of the old Mr. Englefield of the day. It was pos- 
sibly, therefore, through this connexion that Pope owed his 
first introduction to the literary circles of London. Pope, 
already thirsting for literary fame, was delighted to form 
a connexion which must have been far from satisfactory 
to his indulgent parents, if they understood the character 
of his new associates. 

Henry Cromwell, a remote cousin of the Protector, is 
known to other than minute investigators of contemporary 
literature by nothing except his friendship with Pope. 
He was nearly thirty years older than Pope, and, though 
heir to an estate in the country, was at this time a gay, 
though rather eldei'ly, man about town. Vague intima- 
tions are preserved of his personal appearance. Gay calls 
him " honest, hatless Cromwell with red breeches ;" and 
Johnson could learn about him the single fact that he used 
to ride a-hunting in a tie-wig. The interpretation of these 
outward signs may not be very obvious to modern readers ; 
but it is plain from other indications that he was one of 
the frequenters of coffee-houses, aimed at being something 
of a rake and a wit, was on speaking terms with Dryden, 
and familiar with the smaller celebrities of literature, a reg- 
ular attendant at theatres, a friend of actresses, and able 



12 POPE. [cuAP. 

to present himself in fashionable circles and devote com- 
pliuientary verses to the reigning beauties at the Bath. 
When he studied the Spectator he might recognize some 
of his features reflected in the portrait of Will Honeycomb. 
Pope was proud enough for the moment at being taken by 
the hand by this elderly buck, though, as Pope himself 
rose in the literary scale and could estimate literary repu- 
tations more accurately, he became, it would seem, a lit- 
tle ashamed of his early enthusiasm, and, at any rate, the 
friendship dropped. The letters which passed between 
the pair during four or five years, down to the end of iVll, 
show Pope in his earliest manhood. They arc characteristic 
of that period of development in which a youth of literary 
genius takes literary fame in the most desperately serious 
sense. Pope is evidently putting his best foot forward, 
and never for a moment forgets that he is a young author 
writing to a recognized critic — except, indeed, when he 
takes the airs of an experienced rake. We might speak 
of the absurd affectation displayed in the letters, were it 
not that such affectation is the most genuine nature in a 
clever boy. Unluckily, it became so ingrained in Pope 
as to survive his youthful follies. Pope complacently in- 
dulges in elaborate paradoxes and epigrams of the conven- 
tional epistolary style ; he is painfully anxious to be alter- 
nately sparkling and playful ; his head must be full of lit- 
erature ; he indulges in an elaborate criticism of Statins, 
and points out what a sudden fall that author makes at 
one place from extravagant bombast; he communicates 
the latest efforts of his muse, and tries, one regrets to say, 
to get more credit for precocity and originality than fairly 
belongs to him; he accidentally alludes to his dog that he 
may bring in a translation from the Odyssey, quote Plu- 
tarch, and introduce an anecdote which he has heard from 



I.] EARLY YEARS. 13 

Trumbull about Charles I. ; he elaborately discusses Crom- 
well's classical translations, adduces authorities, ventures to 
censure Mr. Rowe's amplifications of Lucan, and, in this re- 
spect, thinks that Brebceuf, the famous French translator, is 
equally a sinner, and writes a long letter as to the proper 
use of the caesura and the hiatus in English verse. There 
are signs that the mutual criticisms became a little trying 
to the tempers of the correspondents. Pope seems to be 
inclined to ridicule Cromwell's pedantry, and when he af- 
fects satisfaction at learning that Cromwell has detected 
him in appropriating a rondeau from Voiture, we feel that 
the tension is becoming serious. Probably he found out 
that Cromwell was not only a bit of a prig, but a person 
not likely to reflect much glory upon his friends, and the 
correspondence came to an end, when Pope found a better 
market for his wares. 

Pope speaks more than once in these letters of his coun- 
try retirement, where he could enjoy the company of the 
muses, but where, on the other hand, he was forced to 
be grave and godly, instead of drunk and scandalous as 
he could be in town. The jolly hunting and drinking 
squires round Binfield thought him, he says, a well - dis- 
posed person, but unluckily disqualified for their rough 
modes of enjoyment by his sickly health. With them he 
has not been able to make one Latin quotation, but has 
learnt a song of Tom Durfey's, the sole representative of 
literature, it appears, at the "toping -tables" of these 
thick-witted fox-hunters. Pope naturally longed for the 
more refined, or at least more fashionable indulgences 
of London life. Besides the literary affectation, he some- 
times adopts the more offensive affectation — unfortunately 
not peculiar to any period — of the youth who wishes to 
pass himself off as deep in the knowledge of the world. 



14 POPE. [cuAP. 

Pope, as may be here said once for all, could be at times 
grossly indecent; and in these letters there are passages 
offensive upon this score, though the offence is far graver 
when the same tendency appears, as it sometimes does, in 
his letters to women. There is no proof that Pope was 
ever licentious in practice. He was probably more tem- 
perate than most of his companions, and could be accused 
of fewer lapses from strict morality than, for example, the 
excellent but thoughtless Steele. For this there was the 
very good reason that his " little, tender, crazy carcass," 
as Wycherley calls it, was utterly unfit for such excesses as 
his companions could practise with comparative impunity. 
He was bound under heavy penalties to be through life a 
valetudinarian, and such doses of wine as the respectable 
Addison used regularly to absorb would have brought 
speedy punishment. Pope's loose talk probably meant 
little, enough in the way of actual vice, though, as I have 
already said, Trumbull saw reasons for friendly warning. 
But some of his writings are stained by pruriency and 
downright obscenity ; whilst the same fault may be con- 
nected with a painful absence of that chivalrous feeling 
towards women which redeems Steele's errors of conduct 
in our estimate of his character. Pope always tates a 
lov/, sometimes a brutal view of the relation between the 
sexes. 

Enough, however, has been said upon this point. If 
Pope erred, he was certainly unfortunate in the objects of 
his youthful hero-worship. Cromwell seems to have been 
but a pedantic hanger-on of literary circles. His other 
great friend, Wycherley, had stronger claims upon his re- 
spect, but certainly was not likely to raise his standard 
of delicacy. Wycherley was a relic of a past literary 
epoch. He was nearly fifty years older than Pope. His 



I.] EARLY YEARS. 15 

last play, the Plain Dealer, had been produced in 1677, 
eleven years before Pope's birth. The Plain Dealer and 
the Country Wife, his chief performances, are conspicuous 
amongst the comedies of the Restoration dramatists for 
sheer brutality. During Pope's boyhood he was an elder- 
ly rake about town, having squandered his intellectual as 
well as his pecuniary resources, but still scribbling bad 
verses and maxims on the model of Rochefoucauld. Pope 
had a very excusable, perhaps we may say creditable, en- 
thusiasm for the acknowledged representatives of literary 
glory. Before he was twelve years old he had persuaded 
some one to take him to Will's, that he might have a sight 
of the venerable Dryden ; and in the first published letter' 
to Wycherley he refers to this brief glimpse, and warmly 
thanks Wycherley for some conversation about the elder 
poet. And thus, when he came to know Wycherley, he 
was enraptured with the honour. He followed the great 
man about, as he tells us, like a dog; and, doubtless, re- 
ceived with profound respect the anecdotes of literary life 
which fell from the old gentleman's lips. Soon a corre- 
spondence began, in which Pope adopts a less jaunty air 
than that of his letters to Cromwell, but which is conduct- 
ed on both sides in the laboured complimentary style 
which was not unnatural in the days when Congreve's 
comedy was taken to represent the conversation of fash- 
ionable life. Presently, however, the letters began to turn 
upon an obviously dangerous topic. Pope was only seven- 
teen when it occurred to his friend to turn him to account 
as a literary assistant. The lad had already shown con- 
siderable powers of versification, and was soon employing 
them in the revision of some of the numerous composi- 

' The letter is, unluckily, of doubtful authenticity ; but it repre- 
sents Pope's probable sentiments. 



16 POPE. [chap. 

tions wliicli amused Wycherley's leisure. It would have 
required, one might have thought, less than AVycherley's 
experience to foresee the natural end of such an alliance. 
Pope, in fact, set to work with great vigour in his favour- 
ite occupation of correcting. He hacked and hewed right 
and left ; omitted, compressed, rearranged, and occasional- 
ly inserted additions of his own devising. Wycherley's 
memory had been enfeebled by illness, and now played 
him strange tricks. He was in the habit of reading him- 
self to sleep with Montaigne, Rochefoucauld, and Racine. 
Next morning he would, with entire unconsciousness, write 
down as his own the thoughts of his author, or repeat al- 
most word for word some previous composition of his 
own. To remove such repetitions thoroughly would re- 
quire a very free application of the knife, and Pope would 
not be slow to discover that he was wasting talents fit 
for original work in botching and tinkering a mass of 
rubbish. 

Any man of ripe years would have predicted the obvi- 
ous consequences ; and, according to the ordinary story, 
those consequences followed. Pope became more plain- 
speaking, and at last almost insulting in his language. 
Wycherley ended by demanding the return of his manu- 
scripts, in a letter showing his annoyance under a veil of 
civility ; and Pope sent them back with a smart reply, 
recommending Wycherley to adopt a previous suggestion 
and turn his poetry into maxims after the manner of 
Rochefoucauld. The " old scribbler," says Johnson, " was 
angry to see his pages defaced, and felt more pain from 
the criticism than content from the amendment of his 
faults." The story is told at length, and with his usual 
brilliance, by Macaulay, and has hitherto passed muster 
with all Pope's biographers ; and, indeed, it is so natural 



I.] EARLY YEARS. lY 

a story, and is so far confirmed by other statements of 
Pope, that it seems a pity to spoil it. And yet it must be 
at least modified, for we have already reached one of those 
perplexities which force a biographer of Pope to be con- 
stantly looking to his footsteps. So numerous are the 
contradictions which surround almost every incident of 
the poet's career, that one is constantly in danger of stum- 
bling into some pitfall, or bound to cross it in gingerly 
fashion on the stepping-stone of a cautious " perhaps." 
The letters which are the authority for this story have 
undergone a manipulation from Pope himself, under cir- 
cumstances to be hereafter noticed; and recent researches 
have shown that a very false colouring has been put upon 
this as upon other passages. The nature of this strange 
perversion is a curious illustration of Pope's absorbing 
vanity. 

Pope, in fact, was evidently ashamed of the attitude 
which he had not unnaturally adopted to his correspond- 
ent. The first man of letters of his day could not bear to 
reveal the full degree in which he had fawned upon the 
decayed dramatist, whose inferiority to himself was now 
plainly recognized. He altered the whole tone of the cor- 
respondence by omission, and still worse by addition. He 
did not publish a letter in which Wycherley gently remon- 
strates with his young admirer for excessive adulation ; he 
omitted from his own letters the phrase which had pro- 
voked the remonstrance ; and, with more daring falsifica- 
tion, he manufactured an imaginary letter to Wycherley 
out of a letter really addressed to his friend Caryll. In 
this letter Pope had himself addressed to Caryll a remon- 
strance similar to that which he had received from Wych- 
erley. W^hen published as a letter to Wycherley, it gives 
the impression that Pope, at the age of seventeen, was al- 



18 POPE, [chap. 

ready rejecting excessive compliments addressed to liim 
by his experienced friend. By these audacious perver- 
sions of the truth, Pope is enabled to heighten his youth- 
ful independence, and to represent himself as already 
exhibiting a graceful superiority to the reception or the 
offering of incense ; whilst he thus precisely inverts the 
relation which really existed between himself and his cor- 
respondent. 

The letters, again, when read with a due attention to 
dates, shows that Wycherley's proneness to take offence 
has at least been exaggerated. Pope's services to Wych- 
erley were rendered on two separate occasions. The first 
set of poems were corrected during 1706 and 1707; and 
Wycherley, in speaking of this revision, far from showing 
symptoms of annoyance, speaks with gratitude of Pope's 
kindness, and returns the expressions of good-will which 
accompanied his criticisms. Both these expressions, and 
Wycherley's acknowledgment of them, were omitted in 
Pope's publication. More than two years elapsed, when 
(in April, 1710) Wycherley submitted a new set of manu- 
scripts to Pope's unflinching severity ; and it is from the 
letters which passed in regard to this last batch that the 
general impression as to the nature of the quarrel has been 
derived. But these letters, again, have been mutilated, and 
so mutilated as to increase the apparent tartness of the 
mutual retorts ; and it must therefore remain doubtful how 
far the coolness which ensued was really due to the cause 
assigned. Pope, writing at the time to Cromwell, expresses 
his vexation at the difference, and professes himself unable 
to account for it, though he thinks that his corrections 
may have been the cause of the rupture. An alternative 
rumour,* it seems, accused Pope of having written some 

' Sec Elwin's Pope, vol. i., cxxxv. 



I.] EARLY YEARS. 19 

satirical verses upon bis friend. To discover the rights 
and wrongs of the quarrel is now impossible, though, 
unfortunately, one thing is clear, namely, that Pope was 
guilty of grossly sacrificing truth in the interests of his 
own vanity. We may, indeed, assume, without much risk 
of error, that Pope had become too conscious of his own 
importance to find pleasure or pride in doctoring another 
man's verses. It must remain uncertain how far he show- 
ed this resentment to Wycherley openly, or gratified it by 
some covert means ; and how far, again, he succeeded in 
calming Wycherley's susceptibility by his compliments, or 
aroused his wrath by more or less contemptuous treatment 
of his verses. 

A year after the quarrel, Cromwell reported that Wych- 
erley had again been speaking in friendly terms of Pope, 
and Pope expressed his pleasure with eagerness. He must, 
he said, be more agreeable to himself when agreeable to 
Wycherley, as the earth was brighter when the sun was 
less overcast. Wycherley, it may be remarked, took Pope's 
advice by turning some of his verses into prose maxims ; 
and they seem to have been at last upon more or less 
friendly terms. The final scene of Wycherley's question- 
able career, some four years later, is given by Pope in a 
letter to his friend, Edward Blount. The old man, he says, 
joined the sacraments of marriage and extreme unction. 
By one he supposed himself to gain some advantage of 
his soul ; by the other, he had the pleasure of saddling his 
hated heir and nephew with the jointure of his widow. 
When dying, he begged his wife to grant him a last re- 
quest, and, upon her consent, explained it to be that she 
would never again marry an old man. Sickness, says Pope 
in comment, often destroys wit and wisdom, but has sel- 
dom the power to remove humour, Wycherley's joke, re- 



20 POPE. [chap. I. 

plies a critic, is contemptible ; and yet one feels that the 
death scene, with this strange mixture of cynicism, spite, 
and superstition, half redeemed by imperturbable good 
temper, would not be unworthy of a place in Wycherley's 
own school of comedy. One could wish that Pope had 
shown a little more perception of the tragic side of such a 
conclusion. 

Pope was still almost a boy when he broke with Wych- 
erley ; but he was already beginning to attract attention, 
and within a surprisingly short time he was becoming 
known as one of the first writers of the day. I must now 
turn to the poems by which this reputation was gained, 
and the incidents connected with their publication. In 
Pope's life, almost more than in that of any other poet, 
the history of the author is the history of the man. 



CHAPTER II. 

FIRST PERIOD OF POPe's LITERARY CAREER. 

Pope's rupture with Wycherley took place in the summer 
of 1710, when Pope, therefore, was just twenty -two. He 
was at this time only known as the contributor of some 
sma;J poems to a Miscellany. Three years afterwards 
(1713) he was receiving such patronage in his great under- 
taking, the translation of Homer, as to prove conclusively 
that he was regarded by the leaders of literature as a poet 
of very high promise; and two years later (1715) the ap- 
pearance of the first volume of his translation entitled him 
to rank as the first poet of the day. So rapid a rise to 
fame has had few parallels, and was certainly not ap- 
proached until Byron woke and found himself famous at 
twenty-four. Pope was eager for the praise of remarkable 
precocity, and was weak and insincere enough to alter the 
dates of some of his writings in order to strengthen his 
claim. Yet, even when we accept the cori'ected accounts 
of recent enquirers, there is no doubt that he gave proofs 
at a very early age of an extraordinary command of the 
resources of his art. It is still more evident that his mer- 
its were promptly and frankly recognized by his contem- 
poraries. Great men and distinguished authors held out 
friendly hands to him ; and he never had to undergo, even 
for a brief period, the dreary ordeal of neglect through 



22 POPE. [chap. 

which men of loftier but less popular genius, have been so 
often compelled to pass. And yet it unfoi'tunately hap- 
pened that, even in this early time, when success followed 
success, and the young man's irritable nerves might well 
have been soothed by the general chorus of admiration, he 
excited and returned bitter antipathies, some of which 
lasted through his life. 

Pope's works belong to three distinct periods. The 
translation of Homer was the great work of the middle 
period of his life. In his later years he wrote the moral 
and satirical poems by which he is now best known. The 
earlier period, with which I have now to deal, was one of 
experimental excursions into various fields of poetry, with 
varying success and rather uncertain aim. Pope I.ad al- 
ready, as we have seen, gone through the process of " fill- 
ing his basket." He had written the epic poem which 
happily found its way into the flames. He had translated 
many passages that struck his fancy in the classics, es- 
pecially considerable fragments of Ovid and Statins. Fol- 
lowing Dryden, he had turned some of Chaucer into mod- 
ern English ; and, adopting a fashion which had not as 
yet quite died of inanition, he had composed certain pas- 
torals in the manner of Theocritus and Virgil. These 
early productions had been written under the eye of Trum- 
bull ; they had been handed about in manuscript ; Wych- 
erley, as already noticed, had shown them to \Yalsh, him- 
self an offender of the same class. Granville, afterwards 
Lord Lansdowne, another small poet, read them, and pro- 
fessed to see in Pope another Virgil ; whilst Congreve, 
Garth, Somers, Halifax, and other men of weight conde- 
scended to read, admire, and criticise. Old Tonson, who 
had published for Dryden, wrote a polite note to Pope, 
then only seventeen, saying that he had seen one of the 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 23 

Pastorals in the hands of Congveve and Walsh, " which 
was extremely fine," and requesting the honour of printing 
it. Three years afterwards it accordingly appeared in 
Tonson's Miscellany, a kind of annual, of which the first 
numbers had been edited by Dryden. Such miscellanies 
more or less discharged the function of a modern maga- 
zine. The plan, said Pope to Wycherley, is very useful to 
the poets, " who, like other thieves, escape by getting into 
a crowd." The volume contained contributions from 
Buckingham, Garth, and Eowe ; it closed with Pope's Pas- 
torals, and opened witli another set of pa&torals by Am- 
brose Philips — a combination which, as we shall see, led to 
one of Pope's first quarrels. 

The Pastorals have been seriously criticised; but they 
are, in truth, mere school -boy exercises; they represent 
nothing more than so many experiments in versification. 
The pastoral form had doubtless been used in earlier hands 
to embody true poetic feeling; but in Pope's time it had 
become hopelessly threadbare. The fine gentlemen in wigs 
and laced coats amused themselves by writing about 
nymphs and " conscious swains," by way of asserting their 
claims to elegance of taste. Pope, as a boy, took the mat- 
ter seriously, and always retained a natural fondness for a 
juvenile performance upon which he had expended great 
labour, and which was the chief proof of his extreme pre- 
cocity. He invites attention to his own merits, and claims 
especially the virtue of propriety. He does not, he tells 
us, like some other people, make his roses and daffodils 
bloom in the same season, and cause his nightingales to 
sing in November ; and he takes particular credit for hav- 
ing remembered that there were no wolves in England, and 
having accordingly excised a passage in which Alexis 
prophesied that those animals would grow milder as they 
2* 



24 POPE. [chap. 

listened to the strains of his favourite nymph. When a 
man has got so far as to bring to England all the pagan 
deities, and rival shepherds contending for bowls and lambs 
in alternate strophes, these niceties seem a little out of 
place. After swallowing such a camel of an anachronism 
as is contained in the following lines, it is ridiculous to 
pride oneseL upon straining at a gnat : — 
Inspire me, says Strephon, 

" Inspire me, Phoebus, in my Delia's praise 
With Waller's strains or Granville's moving lays. 
A milk-white bull shall at your altars stand, 
That threats a fight, and spurns the rising sand." 

Granville would certainly not have felt more surprised at 
meeting a wolf than at seeing a milk-white bull sacrificed 
to Phoebus on the banks of the Thames. It would be a 
more serious complaint that Pope, who can thus admit 
anachronisms as daring as any of those which provoked 
Johnson in Lycidas, shows none of that exquisite feeling 
for rural scenery which is one of the superlative charms 
of Milton's early poems. Though country-bred, he talks 
about country sights and sounds as if he had been brought 
up at Christ's Hospital, and read of them only in Virgil. 
But, in truth, it is absurd to dwell upon such points. The 
sole point worth notice in the Pastorals is the general 
sweetness of the versification. Many corrections show 
how carefully Pope had elaborated these early lines, and 
by what patient toil he was acquiring the peculiar quali- 
ties of style in which he was to become pre-eminent. We 
may agree with Johnson that Pope performing upon a 
pastoral pipe is rather a ludicrous person, but for mere 
practice even nonsense verses have been found useful. 
The young gentleman was soon to give a far more char- 



11.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 25 

acterlstic specimen of his peculiar powers. Poets, accord- 
ing to the ordinary rule, should begin by exuberant fancy, 
and learn to prune and refine as the reasoning faculties de- 
velope. But Pope was from the first a conscious and de- 
liberate artist. He had read the fashionable critics of his 
time, and had accepted their canons as an embodiment of 
irrefragable reason. His head was full of maxims, some 
of which strike us as palpable truisms, and others as typ- 
ical specimens of wooden pedantry. Dryden had set the 
example of looking upon the French critics as authoritative 
lawgivers in poetry. Boileau's art of poetry was carefully 
studied, as bits of it were judiciously appropriated, by 
Pope. Another authority was the great Bossu, who wrote 
in 1675 a treatise on epic poetry; and the modern reader 
may best judge of the doctrines characteristic of the 
school by the naive pedantry with which Addison, the typ- 
ical man of taste of his time, invokes the authority of Bossu 
and Aristotle, in his exposition of Paradise Lost.* English 
writers were treading in the steps of Boileau and Horace. 
Roscommon selected for a poem the lively topic of " trans- 
lated verse ;" and SheflBeld had written with Dryden an es- 
say upon satire, and afterwards a more elaborate essay upon 
poetry. To these masterpieces, said Addison, another mas- 
terpiece was now added by Pope's Essay upon Criticism. 
Not only did Addison applaud, but later critics have spoken 
of their wonder at the penetration, learning, and taste ex- 
hibited by so young a man. The essay was carefully fin- 
ished. Written apparently in 1709, it was published in 
1711. This was as short a time, said Pope to Spence, as 
he ever let anything of his lie by him ; he no doubt em- 

' Any poet who followed Bossu's rules, said Voltaire, might be 
certain that no one would read him; happily it was impossible to 
follow them. 



26 POPE. [chap. 

ployed it, according to Lis custom, in correcting and revis- 
ing, and he had prepared himself by carefully digesting 
the whole in prose. It is, however, written without any 
elaborate logical plan, though it is quite sufficiently cohe- 
rent for its purpose. The maxims on which Pope chiefly 
dwells are, for the most part, the obvious rules which have 
been the common property of all generations of critics. 
One would scarcely ask for originality in such a case, any 
more than one would desire a writer on ethics to invent 
new laws of morality. We require neither Pope nor Aris- 
totle to tell us that critics should not be pert nor preju- 
diced ; that fancy should be regulated by judgment ; that 
apparent facility comes by long training ; that the sound 
should have some conformity to the meaning ; that genius 
is often envied ; and that dulness is frequently beyond the 
reach of reproof. We might even guess, without the au- 
thority of Pope, backed by Bacon, that there are some 
beauties which cannot be taught by method, but must be 
reached " by a kind of felicity." It is not the less inter- 
esting to notice Pope's skill in polishing these rather rusty 
sayings into the appearance of novelty. In a familiar line 
Pope gives us the view which he would himself apply 
in such cases. 

" True wit is nature to advantage dress'd, 
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd." 

The only fair question, in short, is whether Pope has 
managed to give a lasting form to some of the floating 
commonplaces which have more or less suggested them- 
selves to every writer. If we apply this test, we must ad- 
mit that if the essay upon criticism does not show deep 
thought, it shows singular skill in putting old truths. 
Pope undeniably succeeded in hitting off many phrases 
of marked felicity. He already showed the power, in 



11.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 27 

wliicli he was probably unequalled, of coining aphorisms 
out of commonplace. Few people read the essay now, but 
everybody is aware that " fools rush in where angels fear 
to tread," and has heard the warning — 

" A little learning is a dangerous thing, 

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :" 

maxims which may not commend themselves as strictly 
accurate to a scientific reason er, but which have as much 
truth as one can demand from an epigram. And besides 
many sayings which share in some degree their merit, 
there are occasional passages which rise, at least, to the 
height of graceful rhetoric if they are scarcely to be called 
poetical. One simile was long famous, and was called by 
Johnson the best in the language. It is that in which 
the sanguine youth, overwhelmed by a growing percep- 
tion of the boundlessness of possible attainments, is com- 
pared to the traveller crossing the mountains, and seeing — 

" Hills peep o'er hills and Alps on Alps arise." 

The poor simile is pretty well forgotten, but is really a 
good specimen of Pope's brilliant declamation. 

The essay, however, is not uniformly polished. Be- 
tween the happier passages we have to cross stretches of 
flat prose twisted into rhyme ; Pope seems to have inten- 
tionally pitched his style at a prosaic level as fitter for 
didactic purposes ; but besides this we here and there 
come upon phrases which are not only elliptical and 
slovenly, but defy all grammatical construction. This was 
a blemish to which Pope was always strangely liable. It 
was perhaps due in part to over-correction, when the con- 
text was forgotten and the subject had lost its freshness. 
Critics, again, have remarked upon the poverty of the 



28 POPE. [chap. 

rhymes, and observed that he makes ten rhymes to 
*' wit " and twelve to " sense." The frequent recurrence 
of the words is the more awkward because they are 
curiously ambiguous. " Wit " was beginning to receive 
its modern meaning; but Pope uses it vaguely as some- 
times equivalent to intelligence in general, sometimes to 
the poetic faculty, and sometimes to the erratic fancy, 
which the true poet restrains by sense. Pope would 
have been still more puzzled if asked to define precise- 
ly what he meant by the antithesis between nature and 
art. They are somehow opposed, yet art turns out to be 
only " nature methodized." We have, indeed, a clue for 
our guidance ; to study nature, we are told, is the same 
thing as to study Homer, and Homer should be read day 
and night, with Virgil for a comment and Aristotle for 
an expositor. Nature, good sense, Homer, Virgil, and the 
Stagyrite all, it seems, come to much the same thing. 

It would be very easy to pick holes in this very loose 
theory. But it is better to try to understand the point 
of view indicated ; for, in truth. Pope is really stating the 
assumptions which guided his whole career. No one will 
accept his position at the present time ; but any one who 
is incapable of, at least, a provisional sympathy, may as 
well throw Pope aside at once, and with Pope most con- 
temporary' literature. 

The dominant figure in Pope's day was the Wit. The 
wit — taken personally — was the man who represented 
what we now describe by culture or the spirit of the 
age. Bright, clear, common sense was for once having 
its own way, and tyrannizing over the faculties from 
which it too often suffers violence. The favoured fac- 
ulty never doubted its own qualification for supremacy 
in every department. In metaphysics it was triumphing 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 29 

with Hobbes and Locke over the remnants of scholasti- 
cism ; under Tillotson, it was expelling mystery from re- 
ligion ; and in art it was declaring war against the extrav- 
agant, the romantic, the mystic, and the Gothic — a word 
then used as a simple term of abuse. Wit and sense are 
but different avatars of the same spirit ; wit was the form 
in which it showed itself in coffee-houses, and sense that 
in which it appeared in the pulpit or parliament. When 
Walsh told Pope to be correct, he was virtually advising 
him to carry the same spirit into poetry. The classicism 
of the time was the natural corollary ; for the classical 
models were the historical symbols of the movement 
which Pope represented. He states his view very tersely 
in the essay. Classical culture had been overwhelmed by 
the barbarians, and the monks " finished what the Goths 
began." Letters revived when the study of classical 
models again gave an impulse and supplied a guidance. 

'•' At length Erasmus, that great injured name, 
The glory of the priesthood and their shame, 
Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barbarous age, 
And drove these holy Vandals off the stage." 

The classicalism of Pope's time was no doubt very dif- 
ferent from that of the period of Erasmus ; but in his 
view it differed only because the contemporaries of Dry- 
den had more thoroughly dispersed the mists of the bar- 
barism which still obscured the Shakspearean age, and 
from which even Milton or Cowley had not completely 
escaped. Dryden and Boileau and the French critics, 
with their interpreters, Roscommon, Sheffield, and Walsh, 
who found rules in Aristotle, and drew their precedents 
from Homer, were at last stating the pure canons of un- 
adulterated sense. To this school wit, and sense, and nat- 



30 POPE. [chap. 

ure, and tlie classics, all meant pretty much the same. 
That was pronounced to be unnatural which was too 
silly, or too far-fetched, or too exalted, to approve itself 
to the good sense of a wit ; and the very incarnation 
and eternal type of good sense and nature was to be 
found in the classics. The test of thorough polish and 
refinement was the power of ornamenting a speech with 
an appropriate phrase from Horace or Virgil, or prefixing 
a Greek motto to an essay in the Sj)ectator. If it was 
necessary to give to any utterance an air of philosophical 
authority, a reference to Longinus or Aristotle was the 
natural device. Perhaps the acquaintance with classics 
might not be very profound ; but the classics supplied 
at least a convenient symbol for the spirit which had 
triumphed against Gothic barbarism and scholastic ped- 
antry. 

Even the priggish wits of that day were capable of 
being bored by didactic poetry, and especially by such 
didactic poetry as resolved itself too easily into a string 
of maxims not more poetical in substance than the im- 
mortal " 'Tis a sin to steal a pin." The essay — published 
anonymously — did not make any rapid success till Pope 
sent round copies to well-known critics. Addison's praise 
and Dennis's abuse helped, as we shall presently see, to 
give it notoriety. Pope, however, returned from criticism 
to poetry, and his next performance was in some degree a 
fresh, but far less puerile, performance upon the pastoral 
pipe.' Nothing could be more natural than for the young 
poet to take for a text the forest in which he lived. Dull 
as the natives might be, their dwelling-place was historical, 

' There is the usual contradiction as to the date of composition 
of Windsor Forest. Part seems to have been written early (Pope 
says 1704), and part certainly not before 1712. 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 31 

and there was an excellent precedent for such a perform- 
ance. Pope, as we have seen, was familiar with Milton's 
juvenile poems ; but such works as the Allegro and Pen- 
seroso were too full of the genuine country spirit to suit 
his probable audience. Wycherley, whom he frequently 
invited to come to Binfield, would undoubtedly have 
found Milton a bore. But Sir John Denhara, a thor- 
oughly masculine, if not, as Pope calls him, a majestic 
poet, was a guide whom the Wycherleys would respect. 
Ilis Cooper'' s Hill (in 1642) was the first example of 
what Johnson calls local poetry — poetry, that is, devoted 
to the celebration of a particular place ; and, moreover, it 
was one of the early models of the rhythm which became 
triumphant in the hands of Dryden. One couplet is still 
familiar : 

" Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not dull ; 
Strong without rage ; without o'erflowing, full." 

The poem has some vigorous descriptive touches, but is in 
the main a forcible expression of the moral and political 
reflections which would be approved by the admirers of 
good sense in poetry. 

Pope's Windsor Forest, which appeared in the begin- 
ping of 1713, is closely and avowedly modelled upon this 
original. There is still a considerable infusion of the 
puerile classicism of the Pastorals, which contrasts awk- 
wardly with Denham's .strength, and a silly episode about 
the nymph Lodona changed into the river Loddon by Di- 
ana, to save her from the pursuit of Pan. But the style 
is animated, and the descriptions, though seldom original, 
show Pope's frequent felicity of language. Wordsworth, 
indeed, was pleased to say that Pope had here introduced 
almost the only "new images of internal nature" to be 



32 POPE. [chap. 

found between Milton and Thomson. Probably tbe good 
Wordsworth was wishing to do a little bit of excessive 
candour. Pope will not introduce his scenery without a 
turn suited to the taste of the town : — 

" Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display, 
And part admit and part exclude the day ; 
As some coy nymph her lover's fond address, 
Nor quite indulges nor can quite repress." 

He has some well-turned lines upon the sports of the for- 
est, though they are clearly not the lines of a sportsman. 
They betray something of the sensitive lad's shrinking from 
the rough squires whose only literature consisted of Dur- 
fey's songs, and who would have heartily laughed at his 
sympathy for a dying pheasant. I may observe in pass- 
ing that Pope always showed the true poet's tenderness 
for the lower animals, and disgust at bloodshed. He loved 
his dog, and said that he would have inscribed over his 
grave, " O rare Bounce," but for the appearance of ridicul- 
ing " rare Ben Jonson." He spoke with horror of a con- 
temporary dissector of live dogs, and the pleasantest of his 
papers in the Guardian is a warm remonstrance against 
cruelty to animals. He " dares not " attack hunting, he 
says — and, indeed, such an attack requires some courage 
even at the present day — but he evidently has no sympa- 
thy with huntsmen, and has to borrow his description from 
Statins, which was hardly the way to get the true local 
colour. Windsor Forest, however, like Cooper^s Hill, 
speedily diverges into historical and political reflections. 
The barbarity of the old forest laws, the poets Denham 
and Cowley and Surrey, who had sung on the banks of the 
Thames, and the heroes who made Windsor illustrious, 
suggest obvious thoughts, put into verses often brilliant, 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 33 

though sometimes affected, varied by a compliment to 
Trumbull and an excessive eulogy of Granville, to whom 
the poem is inscribed. The whole is skilfully adapted to 
the time by a brilliant eulogy upon the peace which was 
concluded just as the poem was published. The Whig 
poet Tickell, soon to be Pope's rival, was celebrating the 
same "lofty theme" on his "artless reed," and introduc- 
ing a pretty little compliment to Pope. To readers who 
have lost the taste for poetry of this class one poem may 
seem about as good as the other; but Pope's superiority 
is plain enough to a reader who will condescend to distin- 
guish. His verses are an excellent specimen of his declam- 
atory style — polished, epigrammatic, and well expressed ; 
and, though keeping far below the regions of true poetry, 
preserving just that level which would commend them to 
the literary statesmen and the politicians at Will's and 
Button's. Perhaps some advocate of Free Trade might 
try upon a modern audience the lines in which Pope ex- 
presses his aspiration in a foot-note that London may one 
day become a " Free Port." There is at least not one 
antiquated or obscure phrase in the whole. Here are half 
a dozen lines : — 

" The time shall come, when, free as seas and wind. 
Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mankind, 
Whole nations enter with each swelling tide. 
And seas but join the regions they divide ; 
Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold. 
And the new world launch forth to seek the old." 

In the next few years Pope found other themes for the 
display of his declamatory powers. Of the Temple of 
Fame (1715), a frigid imitation of Chaucer, I need only 
say that it is one of Pope's least successful performances ; 
but I must notice more fully two rhetorical poems which 



34 POPE. [chap. 

appeared in I7l7. These were the Elegy to the Memory 
of an Unfortunate Lady and the Eloisa to Abelard. Both 
poems, and especially the last, have received the warmest 
praises from Pope's critics, and even from critics who 
Avere most opposed to his school. They are, in fact, his 
chief performances of the sentimental kind. Written in 
his youth, and yet when his powers of versification had 
reached their fullest maturity, they represent an element 
generally absent from his poetry. Pope was at the period 
in which, if ever, a poet should sing of love, and in which 
we expect the richest glow and fervour of youthful imagi- 
nation. Pope was neither a Burns, nor a Byron, nor a 
Keats ; but here, if anywhere, we should find those quali- 
ties in which he has most affinity to the poets of passion 
or of sensuous emotion, not soured by experience or pu- 
rified by reflection. The motives of the two poems were 
skilfully chosen. Pope — as has already appeared to some 
extent — was rarely original in his designs; he liked to 
have the outlines at least drawn for him, to be filled with 
his own colouring. The Eloisa to Abelard was founded 
upon a translation from the French, published in 1714 by 
Hughes (author of the Siege of Damascus), which is itself 
a manipulated translation from the famous Latin originals. 
Pope, it appears, kept very closely to the words of the 
English translation, and in some places has done little 
more than versify the prose, though, of course, it is com- 
pressed, rearranged, and modified. The Unfortunate Lady 
has been the cause of a good deal of controversy. Pope's 
elegy implies, vaguely enough, that she had been cruelly 
treated by her guardians, and had committed suicide in 
some foreign country. The verses, as commentators de- 
cided, showed such genuine feeling, that the story narrated 
in them must have been authentic, and one of his own 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 85 

correspondents (Caryll) begged him for an explanation of 
the facts. Pope gave no answer, but left a posthumous 
note to an edition of his letters calculated, perhaps intend- 
ed, to mystify future inquirers. The lady, a Mrs. Weston, 
to whom the note pointed, did not die till 1724, and could 
therefore not have committed suicide in I7l7. The mys- 
tification was childish enough, though, if Pope had com- 
mitted no worse crime of the kind, one would not consider 
him to be a very grievous offender. The inquiries of Mr. 
Dilke, who cleared up this puzzle, show that there were, in 
fact, two ladies — Mrs. Weston and a Mrs. Cope — known to 
Pope about this time, both of whom suffered under some 
domestic persecution. Pope seems to have taken up their 
cause with energy, and sent money to Mrs. Cope when, at 
a later period, she was dying abroad in great distress. His 
zeal seems to have been sincere and generous, and it is pos- 
sible enough that the elegy was a reflection of his feelings, 
though it suggested an imaginary state of facts. If this 
be so, the reference to the lady in his posthumous note 
contained some relation to the truth, though if taken too 
literally it would be misleading. 

The poems themselves are, beyond all doubt, impres- 
sive compositions. They are vivid and admirably worked. 
" Here," says Johnson of the Eloisa to Abelard, the most 
important of the two, " is particularly observable the curi- 
osa felicitas, a fruitful soil and careful cultivation. Here 
is no crudeness of sense, nor asperity of language." So far 
there can be no dispute. The style has the highest de- 
gree of technical perfection, and it is generally added that 
the poems are as pathetic as they are exquisitely written. 
Bowles, no hearty lover of Pope, declared the Eloisa to be 
" infinitely superior to everything of the kind, ancient or 
modern." The tears shed, says Hazlitt of the same poem. 



36 POPE. [chap. 

" are drops gusliing from the heart ; the words are burn- 
ing sighs breathed from the soul of love." And De Quin- 
cey ends an eloquent criticism by declaring that the " lyr- 
ical tumult of the changes, the hope, the tears, the rapture, 
the penitence, the despair, place the reader in tumultuous 
sympathy with the poor distracted nun." The pathos of 
the Unfortunate Lady has been almost equally praised, 
and I may quote from it a famous passage which Mackin- 
tosh repeated with emotion to repel a charge of coldness 
brought against Pope : — 

" By foreign hands thy dying eyes were closed, 
By foreign hands thy decent hmbs composed, 
By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd, 
By strangers honour'd and by strangers mourn'd ! 
What though no friends in sable weeds appear, 
Grieve for an hour, perhaps, then mourn a year. 
And bear about the mockery of woe 
To midnight dances and the public show ? 
What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace, 
Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face ? 
What though no sacred earth allow thee room. 
Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb ? 
Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be dress'd. 
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast ; 
There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow, 
There the first roses of the year shall blow ; 
While angels with their silver wings o'ershade 
The ground, now sacred by thy reliques made." 

The more elaborate poetry of the Eloim is equally polish- 
ed throughout, and too much praise cannot easily be be- 
stowed upon the skill with which the romantic scenery of 
the convent is indicated in the background, and the force 
with which Pope has given the revulsions of feeling of 
his unfortunate heroine from earthly to heavenly love, and 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 37 

from keen remorse to renewed gusts of overpowering pas- 
sion. All this may be said, and without opposing high 
critical authority. And yet, I must also say, whether with 
or without authority, that I, at least, can read the poems 
without the least " disposition to cry," and that a single 
pathetic touch of Cowper or Wordsworth strikes incom- 
parably deeper. And if I seek for a reason, it seems to 
be simply that Pope never crosses the undefinable, but yet 
ineffaceable, line which separates true poetry from rheto- 
ric. The Eloisa ends rather flatly by one of Pope's char- 
acteristic aphorisms. " He best can paint them (the woes, 
that is, of Eloisa) who shall feel them most;" and it is 
characteristic, by the way, that even in these his most im- 
passioned verses, the lines which one remembers are of the 
same epigrammatic stamp, e. g. : 

" A heap of dust alone remains of thee, 
'Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be ! 

" I mourn the lover, not lament the fault. 

" How happy is the blameless vestal's lot, 
The world forgetting, by the world forgot." 

The worker in moral aphorisms cannot forget himself even 
in the full swing of his fervid declamation. I have no 
doubt that Pope so far exemplified his own doctrine that 
he truly felt whilst he was writing. His feelings make 
him eloquent, but they do not enable him to " snatch a 
grace beyond the reach of art," to blind us for a moment 
to the presence of the consummate workman, judiciously 
blending his colours, heightening his effects, and skilfully 
managing his transitions or consciously introducing an 
abrupt outburst of a new mood. The smoothness of the 
verses imposes monotony even upon the varying passions 
which are supposed to struggle in Eloisa's breast. It is 



38 POPE. [chap. 

not merely our knowledge tliat Pope is speaking dramat- 
ically which prevents us from receiving the same kind of 
impressions as we receive from poetry — such, for example, 
as some of Cowper's minor pieces — into which we know 
that a man is really putting his whole heart. The com- 
parison would not be fair, for in such cases we are moved 
by knowledge of external facts as well as by the poetic 
power. But it is simply that Pope always resembles an 
orator whose gestures are studied, and who thinks, while 
he is speaking, of the fall of his robes and the attitude 
of his hands. lie is throughout academical ; and though 
knowing with admirable uicety how grief should be rep- 
resented, and what have been the expedients of his best 
predecessors, he misses the one essential touch of sponta- 
neous impulse. — 

One other blemish is perhaps more fatal to the popu- 
larity of the Eloisa. There is a taint of something un- 
wholesome and effeminate. Pope, it is true, is only fol- 
lowing the language of the original in the most offensive 
passages ; but we see too plainly that he has dw'elt too 
fondly upon those passages, and worked them up with es- 
pecial care. "We need not be prudish in our judgment of 
impassioned poetry ; but when the passion has this false 
ring, the ethical coincides with the aesthetic objection. 

I have mentioned these poems here, because they seem 
to be the development of the rhetorical vein which ap- 
peared in the earlier work. But I have passed over an- 
other work which has sometimes been regarded as his 
masterpiece. A Lord Petre had offended a Miss Fermor 
by stealing a lock of her hair. She thought that he 
showed more gallantry than courtesy, and some unpleas- 
ant feeling resulted between the families. Pope's friend, 
Caryll, thought that it might be appeased if the young 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 89 

poet would turn the whole affair into friendly ridicule. 
Nobody, it might well be supposed, had a more dexterous 
touch ; and a brilliant trifle from his hands, just fitted for 
the atmosphere of drawing-rooms, would be a convenient 
peace-offering, and was the very thing in which he might 
be expected to succeed. Pope accordingly set to work at 
a dainty little mock-heroic, in which he describes, in play- 
ful mockery of the conventional style, the fatal coffee- 
drinking at Hampton, in which the too daring peer appro- 
priated the lock. The poem received the praise which it 
well deserved ; for certainly the young poet had executed 
his task to a nicety. No more brilliant, sparkling, viva- 
cious trifle is to be found in our literature than the Rape 
of the Lock, even in this early form. Pope received per- 
mission from the lady to publish it in Lintofs Miscellany 
in 1712, and a wider circle admired it, though it seems 
that the lady and her family began to think that young- 
Mr, Pope was making rather too free with her name. 
Pope meanwhile, animated by his success, hit upon a sin- 
gularly happy conception, by which he thought that the 
poem might be rendered more important. The solid 
critics of those days were much occupied with the ma- 
chinery of epic poems ; the machinery being composed of 
the gods and goddesses who, from the days of Homer, 
had attended to the fortunes of heroes. He had hit upon 
a curious French book, the Comte de Gabalis, which pro- 
fesses to reveal the mysteries of the Rosicrucians, and it 
occurred to him that the elemental sylphs and gnomes 
would serve his purpose admirably. He spoke of his new 
device to Addison, who administered — and there is not 
the slightest reason for doubting his perfect sincerity and 
good meaning — a little dose of cold water. The poem, 
as it stood, was a "delicious little thing" — menan sal — 
3 



40 rOPE. [chap. 

and it would be a pity to alter it. Pope, however, ad- 
hered to his plan, made a splendid success, and thought 
that Addison must have been prompted by some mean 
motive. The Rape of the Lock appeared in its new form, 
with sylphs and gnomes, and an ingenious account of a 
game at cards and other improvements, in 1714. Pope 
declared, and critics have agreed, that he never showed 
more skill than in the remodelling of this poem ; and it 
has ever since held a kind of recognized supremacy amongst 
the productions of the drawing-room muse. 

The reader must remember that the so-called heroic 
style of Pope's period is now hopelessly effete. No hu- 
man being would care about machinery and the rules of 
Bossu, or read without utter weariness the mechanical im- 
itations of Homer and Virgil which were occasionally at- 
tempted by the Blackmores and other less ponderous ver- 
sifiers. The shadow grows dim with the substance. The 
burlesque loses its point when we care nothing for the 
original ; and, so far, Pope's bit of filigree-work, as Ilaz- 
litt calls it, has become tarnished. The very mention of 
beaux and belles suggests the kind of feeling with which 
we disinter fragments of old-world finery from the depths 
of an ancient cabinet, and even the wit is apt to sound 
wearisome. And further, it must be allowed to some 
hostile critics that Pope has a worse defect. The poem 
is, in effect, a satire upon feminine frivolity. It continues 
the strain of mockery against hoops and patches and their 
wearers, which supplied Addison and his colleagues with 
the materials of so many Spectators. I think that even 
in Addison there is something which rather jars upon us. 
His persiflage is full of humour and kindliness, but under- 
lying it there is a tone of superiority to women which is 
sometimes offensive. It is taken for granted that a worn- 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 41 

an is a fool, or at least should be flattered if any man 
condescends to talk sense to her. With Pope this tone 
becomes harsher, and the merciless satirist begins to show 
himself. In truth, Pope can be inimitably pungent, but 
he can never be simply playful. Addison was too conde- 
scending with his pretty pupils ; but under Pope's courte- 
sy there lurks contempt, and his smile has a disagreeable 
likeness to a sneer. If Addison's manner sometimes sug- 
gests the blandness of a don who classes women with the 
inferior beings unworthy of the Latin grammar, Pope sug- 
gests the brilliant wit whose contempt has a keener edge 
from his resentment against fine ladies blinded to his gen- 
ius by his personal deformity. 

Even in his dedication, Pope, with unconscious imper- 
tinence, insults his heroine for her presumable ignorance 
of his critical jargon. His smart epigrams want but a 
slight change of tone to become satire. It is the same 
writer who begins an essay on women's characters by tell- 
ing a woman that her sex is a compound of 

. " Matter too soft a lasting mask to bear ; 

And best distinguished by black, brown, or fair," 

and communicates to her the pleasant truth that 

" Every woman is at heart a rake." 

Women, in short, are all frivolous beings, whose one gen- 
uine interest is in love-making. The same sentiment is 
really implied in the more playful lines in the ^a/?e of the 
Lock. The sylphs are warned by omens that some mis- 
fortune impends ; but they don't know what. 

" Whether the nymph shall break Diana's law, 
Or some frail cliina jar receive a flaw ; 
Or stain her honour or her new brocade, 
Forget her prayers or miss a masquerade ; 



42 POPE. [chap. 

Or lose her heart or necklace at a ball, 

Or whether heaven has doom'd that Shock must fall." 

We can understand that Miss Fermor would feel such 
raillery to be equivocal. It may be added, that an equal 
want of delicacy is implied in the mock-heroic battle at 
the end, where the ladies are gifted with an excess of 
screaming power : — 

" ' Restore the lock !' she cries, and all around 
' Restore the lock,' the vaulted roofs rebound — 
Not fierce Othello in so loud a strain 
Roar'd for the handkerchief that caused his pain." 

These faults, though far from trifling, are yet felt only 
as blemishes in the admirable beauty and brilliance of the 
poem. The successive scenes are given with so firm and 
clear a touch — there is such a sense of form, the language 
is such a dexterous elevation of the ordinary social twaddle 
into the mock-heroic, that it is impossible not to recognize 
a consummate artistic power. The dazzling display of 
true wit and fancy blinds us for the time to the want of 
that real tenderness and humour which would havq, soft- 
ened some harsh passages, and given a more enduring 
charm to the poetry. It has, in short, the merit that be- 
longs to any work of art which expresses in the most fin- 
ished form the sentiment characteristic of a given social 
phase ; one deficient in many of the most ennobling in- 
fluences, but yet one in which the arts of converse repre- 
sent a very high development of shrewd sense refined into 
vivid wit. And we may, I think, admit that there is some 
foundation for the genealogy that traces Pope's Ariel back 
to his -more elevated ancestor in the Temjiest. The later 
Ariel, indeed, is regarded as the soul of a coquette, and is 
almost an allegory of the spirit of poetic fancy in slavery 
to polished society. 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 43 

"Gums and pomatums shall Iiis flight restrain 
While clogg'd he beats his silken wings in vain." 

Pope's Ariel is a parody of the ethereal being into 
whom Shakspeare had refined the ancient fairy ; but it is 
a parody which still preserves a sense of the delicate and 
graceful. The ancient race, which appeared for the last 
time in this travesty of the fashion of Queen Anne, still 
showed some toucli of its ancient beauty. Since that 
time no fairy has appeared without being hopelessly child- 
ish or affected. 

Let us now turn from the poems to the author's person- 
al career during the same period. In the remarkable au- 
tobiographic poem called the Epistle to Arbuthnot, Pope 
speaks of his early patrons and friends, and adds — 

" Soft were my numbers ; who could take offence 
When pure description held the place of sense ? 
Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, 
A painted mistress or a purling stream. 
Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill — 
I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still. 
Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret ; 
I never answer'd, — I was not in debt." 

Pope's view of his own career suggests the curious 
problem : how it came to pass that so harmless a man 
should be the butt of so many hostilities? How could 
any man be angry with a writer of gentle pastorals and 
versified love-letters ? The answer of Pope was, that this 
was the normal state of things. " The life of a wit," he 
says, in the preface to his works, "is a warfare upon 
eartb ;" and the warfare results from the hatred of men 
of genius natural to the dull. Had any one else made 
such a statement. Pope would have seen its resemblance to 
the complaint of the one reasonable juryman overpow- 



44 POPE. [cuAP. 

ered by eleven obstinate fellows. But avc may admit that 
an intensely sensitive natnre is a bad qualification for a 
public career. A man wlio ventures into the throng of 
competitors without a skin will be tortured by every 
touch, and suffer the more if he turns to retaliate. 

Pope's first literary performances had not been so harm- 
less as he suggests. Amongst the minor men of letters of 
the day was the surly John Dennis. He was some thirty 
years Pope's senior ; a writer of dreary tragedies which 
had gained a certain success by their Whiggish tenden- 
cies, and of ponderous disquisitions upon critical questions, 
not much cruder in substance though heavier in form 
than many utterances of Addison or Steele. He could, 
however, snarl out some shrewd things when provoked, 
and was known to the most famous wits of the day. He 
had corresponded with Dryden, Congreve, and Wycher- 
ley, and published some of their letters. Pope, it seems, 
had been introduced to him by Cromwell, but they had 
met only two or three times. When Pope had become 
ashamed of following Wycherley about like a dog, he 
would soon find out that a Dennis did not deserve the 
homage of a rising genius. Possibly Dennis had said 
something of Pope's Pastorals, and Pope had probably 
been a Avitness, perhaps more than a mere witness, to 
some passage of arms in which Dennis lost his temper. 
In mere youthful impertinence he introduced an offensive 
touch in the Essay ujxj)i Criticism. It would be well, he 
said, if critics could advise authors freely, — 

" But Appius reddens at each word you speak, 
And stares, tremendous, with a threatening eye, 
Like some fierce tyrant in old tapestry." 

The name Appius referred to Dennis's tragedy of A]:)- 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF PORE'S LITERARY CAREER. 45 

plus and Virginia, a piece now recollected solely by the 
fact that poor Dennis had invented some new thunder for 
the performance ; and by his piteous complaint against 
the actors for afterwards " stealing his thunder," had 
started a proverbial expression. Pope's reference stung 
Dennis to the quick. He replied by a savage pamphlet, 
pulling Pope's essay to pieces, and hitting some real blots, 
but diverging into the coarsest personal abuse. Not con- 
tent with saying in his preface that he was attacked with 
the utmost falsehood and calumny by a little affected hyp- 
ocrite, who had nothing in his mouth but truth, candour, 
and good-nature, he reviled Pope for his personal defects ; 
insinuated that he was a hunch- backed toad; declared 
that he was the very shape of the bow of the god of love ; 
that he might be thankful that he was born a modern, 
for, had he been born of Greek parents, his life would have 
been no longer than that of one of his poems, namely, 
half a day ; and that his outward form, however like a 
monkey's, could not deviate more from the average of 
humanity than his mind. These amenities gave Pope his 
first taste of good, savage, slashing abuse. The revenge 
was out of all proportion to the offence. Pope, at first, 
seemed to take the assault judiciously. He kept silence, 
and simply marked some of the faults exposed by Dennis 
for alteration. But the wound rankled, and when an op- 
portunity presently offered itself, Pope struck savagely at 
his enemy. To show how this came to pass, I must rise 
from poor old Dennis to a more exalted literary sphere. 

The literary world, in which Dryden had recently been, 
and Pope was soon to be, the most conspicuous figure, 
was for the present under the mild dictatorship of Addi- 
son. We know Addison as one of the most kindly and 
delicate of humourists, and we can perceive the gentleness 



46 POPE. [chap. 

which made him one of the most charming of companions 
in a small society. Ills sense of the ludicrous saved him 
from the disagreeable ostentation of powers which Avere 
never applied to express bitterness of feeling or to edge 
angry satire. The reserve of his sensitive nature made ac- 
cess difficult, but he was so transparently modest and un- 
assuming that his shyness was not, as is too often the case, 
mistaken for pride. It is easy to understand the povsthu- 
mous affection which Macaulay has so eloquently express- 
ed, and the contemporary popularity which, according to 
Swift, would have made people unwilling to refuse him 
had he asked to be king. And yet I think that one can- 
not read Addison's praises without a certain recalcitration, 
like that which one feels in the case of the model boy 
who wins all the prizes, including that for good conduct. 
It is hard to feel very enthusiastic about a virtue whose 
dictates coincide so precisely with the demands of deco- 
rum, and which leads by so easy a path to reputation and 
success. Popularity is more often significant of the tact 
which makes a man avoid giving offence, than of the 
warm impulses of a generous nature. A good man who 
mixes with the world ought to be hated, if not to hate. 
But, whatever we may say against his excessive goodness, 
Addison deserved and received universal esteem, which in 
some cases became enthusiastic. Foremost amongst his 
admirers was the warm-hearted, reckless, impetuous Steele, 
the typical Irishman ; and amongst other members of his 
little senate — as Pope called it — were Ambrose Philips 
and Tickell, young men of letters and sound Whig poli- 
tics, and more or less competitors of Pope in literature. 
When Pope was first becoming known in London the 
Whigs were out of power ; Addison and his friends were 
generally to be found at Button's Coffee-house in the af- 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 47 

ternoon, and were represented to the society of the tune 
by the Sj^ectator, -which, began in March, 1711, and appear- 
ed daily to the end of I7l2. Naturally, the young Pope 
would be anxious to approach this famous clique, though 
his connexions lay, in the first instance, amongst the Jaco- 
bite and Catholic families. Steele, too, would be glad to 
welcome so promising a contributor to the Spectator and 
its successor, the Guardian. 

Pope, we may therefore believe, was heartily delighted 
when, some months after Dennis's attack, a notice of his 
Essay upon Criticism appeared in the Spectator, December 
20,1711. The reviewer censured some attacks upon con- 
temporaries — a reference obviously to the lines upon Den- 
nis — which the author had admitted into his " very fine 
poem ;" but there were compliments enough to overbal- 
ance this slight reproof. Pope wrote a letter of acknowl- 
edgment to Steele, overflowing with the sincerest gratitude 
of a young poet on his first recognition by a high author- 
ity. Steele, in reply, disclaimed the article, and promised 
to introduce Pope to its real author, the great Addison him- 
self. It does not seem that the acquaintance thus opened 
with the Addisonians ripened very rapidly, or led to any 
considerable results. Pope, indeed, is said to have written 
some Spectator's. He certainly sent to Steele his Messiah, 
a sacred eclogue in imitation of Virgil's Pollio. It ap- 
peared on May 14, 1712, and is one of Pope's dexterous 
pieces of workmanship, in which phrases from Isaiah are 
so strung together as to form a good imitation of the fa- 
mous poem which was once supposed to entitle Virgil to 
some place among the inspired heralds of Christianity. 
Pope sent another letter or two to Steele, which look very 
much like intended contributions to the Spectator, and a 
short letter about Hadrian's verses to his soul, which ap- 
3* 



48 POPE. [ciiAP. 

pcared in November, 1712, Wlien, in 1713, the Guardian 
succeeded the S^Jectator, Pope was one of Steele's contrib- 
utors, and a paper by him upon dedications appeared as 
the fourth number. He soon gave a more remarkable 
proof of his friendly relations with Addison. 

It is probable that no first performance of a play upon 
the English stage ever excited so much interest as that of 
Addison's Cato. It was not only the work of the first man 
of letters of the day, but it had, or was taken to have, a 
certain political significance. *' The time was come," says 
Johnson, " when those who affected to think liberty in 
danger, affected likewise to think that a stage-play might 
preserve it." Addison, after exhibiting more than the 
usual display of reluctance, prepared his play for represen- 
tation, and it was undoubtedly taken to be in some sense 
a Whig manifesto. It was, therefore, remarkable that he 
should have applied to Pope for a prologue, though Pope's 
connexions were entirely of the anti-Whiggish kind, and a 
passage in Windsor Forest, his last new poem (it appeared 
in March, 1713), indicated pretty plainly a refusal to accept 
the Whig shibboleths. In the Forest he was enthusiastic 
for the peace, and sneered at the Revolution. Pope after- 
wards declared that Addison had disavowed all party in- 
tentions at the time, and he accused him of insincerity for 
afterwards taking credit (in a poetical dedication of Cato) 
for the services rendered by his play to the cause of liber- 
ty. Pope's assertion is worthless in ,any case where he 
could exalt his own character for consistency at another 
man's expense, but it is true that both parties were in- 
clined to equivocate. It is, indeed, difficult to understand 
how, if any " stage-play could preserve liberty," such a play 
as Cato should do the work. The polished declamation is 
made up of the platitudes common to Whigs and Tories; 



II.] FIRST TERIOD OF TOPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 49 

and Bolingbroke gave tlie cue to bis own party when bo 
presented fifty g'uineas to Cato's representatives for defend- 
ing the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dicta- 
tor. The Whigs, said Pope, design a second present when 
they can contrive as good a saying. Bolingbroke was, of 
course, aiming at Marlborough, and his interpretation was 
intrinsically as plausible as any that could have been de- 
vised by his antagonists. Each side could adopt Cato as 
easily as rival sects can quote the Bible ; and it seems pos- 
sible that Addison may have suggested to Pope that noth- 
ing in Cato could really oflfend his principles. Addison, 
as Pope also tells us, thought the prologue ambiguous, and 
altered "Britons, arise!'''' to "Britons, attend H lest the 
phrase should be thought to hint at a new revolution. 
Addison advised Pope about this time not to be content 
with the applause of " half the nation," and perhaps re- 
garded him as one who, by the fact of his external position 
with regard to parties, would be a more appropriate spon- 
sor for the play. 

Whatever the intrinsic significance of Cato, circum- 
stances gave it a political colour ; and Pope, in a lively de- 
scription of the first triumphant night to bis friend Caryll, 
says, that as author of the successful and very spirited pro- 
logue, he was clapped into a Whig, sorely against his will, 
at every two lines. Shortly before, he had spoken in the 
warmest terms to the same correspondent of the admira- 
ble moral tendency of the work ; and perhaps he bad not 
realized the full party significance till be became conscious 
of the impression produced upon the audience. • Not long 
afterwards (letter of June 12, 1713) we find him complain- 
ing that bis connexion with Steele and the Guard'ian was 
giving offence to some honest Jacobites. Had they known 
the nature of the connexion, they need hardly have 



50 POPE. [chap. 

grudged Steele his contributor. His next proceedings 
possibly suggested the piece of advice which Addison 
gave to Lady M.W.Montagu: "Leave Pope as soon'as 
you can ; he will certainly play you some devilish trick 
else." 

Ilis first trick was calculated to vex an editor's soul. 
Ambrose Philips, as I have said, had published certain pas- 
torals in the same volume with Pope's. Philips, though he 
seems to have been less rewarded than mo'^ of his com- 
panions, was certainly accepted as an attached member of 
Addison's " little senate ;" and that body was not more 
free than other mutual admiration societies from the de- 
sire to impose its own prejudices upon the public. M^hen 
Philips's Distressed Mother, a close imitation of Racine's 
Androniaque, was preparing for the stage, the Spectator 
was taken by Will Honeycomb to a rehearsal {Spectator, 
January 31, 1 712), and Sir Roger de Coverley himself at- 
tended one of the performances {lb., March 25), and was 
profoundly affected by its pathos. The last paper was of 
course by Addison, and is a real triumph of art as a most 
delicate application of humour to the slightly "unworthy 
purpose of puffing' a friend and disciple. Addison had 
again praised Philips's Pastorals in the Spectator (October 
30, 1712) ; and amongst the early numbers of the Guardian 
were a short series of papers upon pastoral poetry, in which 
the fortunate Ambrose was again held up as a model, 
whilst no notice was taken of Pope's rival performance. 
Pope, one may believe, had a contempt for Philips, whose 
pastoral inanities, whether better or worse than his own, 
had not the excuse of being youthful productions. Phil- 
ips has bequeathed to our language the phrase " Namby- 
pamby," imposed upon him by Henry Carey (author of 
Sally in our Alley, awd the clever farce Chrononhotontko- 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 51 

logos), and years after this lie wrote a poem to Miss Pulte- 
ney in the nursery, beginning, — 

" Dimply damsel, sweetly smiling," 

which may sufficiently interpret the meaning of his nick- 
name. Pope's irritable vanity was vexed at the liberal 
praises bestowed on such a rival, and he revenged himself 
by an artifice more ingenious than scrupulous. He sent 
an anonymous article to Steele for the Guardian. It is a 
professed continuation of the previous papers on pastorals, 
and is ostensibly intended to remove the appearance of 
partiality arising from the omission of Pope's name. In 
the first paragraphs the design is sufficiently concealed to 
mislead an' unwary reader into the belief that Philips is 
preferred to Pope; but the irony soon becomes transpar- 
ent, and Philips's antiquated affectation is contrasted with 
the polish of Pope, who is said even to " deviate into down- 
right poetry." Steele, it is said, was so far mystified as to 
ask Pope's permission to publish the criticism. Pope gen- 
erously permitted, and, accordingly, Steele printed what he 
must soon have discovered to be a shi'ewd attack upon his 
old friend and ally. Some writers have found a difficul- 
ty in understanding how Steele could have so blundered. 
One might, perhaps, whisper in confidence to the discreet, 
that even editors are mortal, and that Steele was conceiva- 
bly capable of the enormity of reading papers carelessly. 
Philips was furious, and hung up a birch in Button's Cof- 
fee-house, declaring that he would apply it to his torment- 
or should he ever show his nose in the room. As Philips 
was celebrated for skill with the sword, the mode of ven- 
geance was certainly unmanly, and stung the soul of his 
adversary, always morbidly sensitive to all attacks, and es- 
pecially to attacks upon his person. The hatred thus kin- 



52 rOPE. [chap. 

died was never qucnclied, and brcatlies in some of Pope's 
bitterest lines. 

If not a " devilisli trick," tliis little performance was 
enough to make Pope's relations to the Addison set de- 
cidedly unpleasant. Addison is said (but the story is very 
improbable) to have enjoyed the joke. If so, a vexatious 
incident must have changed his view of Poj^e's pleasant- 
ries, though Pope professedly appeared as his defender. 
Poor old Thersites-Dennis published, during the summer, 
a very bitter attack upon Addison's Cato. He said after- 
wards — though, considering the relations of the men, some 
misunderstanding is probable — that Pope had indirectly 
instigated this attack through the bookseller, Lintot. If 
so, Pope must have deliberately contrived the trap for the 
unlucky Dennis ; and, at any rate, he fell upon Dennis as 
soon as the trap was sprung. Though Dennis was a hot- 
lieaded Whig, he had quarrelled with Addison and Steele, 
and was probably jealous, as the author of tragedies in- 
tended, like Cato, to propagate Whig principles, perhaps 
to turn W^hig prejudices to account. He writes with the 
bitterness of a disappointed and unlucky man, but he 
makes some very fair points against his enemy. Pope's 
retaliation took the form of an anonymous " Narrative of 
the Frenzy of John Dennis.'" It is written in that style 
of coarse personal satire of which Swift was a master, but 
for which Pope was very ill fitted. All his neatness of 
style seems to desert him when he tries this tone, and 
nothing is left but a brutal explosion of contemptuous 
hatred. Dennis is described in his garret, pouring forth 
insane ravings prompted by his disgust at the success of 

' Mr. Dilke, it is perliaps riglit to say, has given some reasons for 
doubting Pope's autliorship of this squib ; but the authenticity seems 
to be established, and Mr. Dillie himself hesitates. 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POFE'S LITERARY CAREER. 53 

Cato ; but not a word is said in reply to Dennis's criti- 
cisms. It was plain enough tliat the author, whoever he 
might be, was more anxious to satisfy a grudge against 
Dennis than to defend Dennis's victim. It is not much of 
a compliment to Addison to say that he had enough good 
feeling to scorn such a mode of retaliation, and perspi- 
cuity enough to see that it would be little to his credit. 
Accordingly, in his majestic way, he caused Steele to write 
a note to Lintot (August 4, 1713), disavowing all complic- 
ity, and saying that if even he noticed Mr. Dennis's criti- 
cisms, it should be in such a way as to give Mr. Dennis no 
cause of complaint. He added that he had refused to see 
the pamphlet when it was offered for his in.spection, and 
had expressed his disapproval of such a mode of attack. 
Nothing could be more becoming; and it does not appear 
that Addison knew, when writing this note, that Pope was 
the author of the anonymous assault. If, as the biogra- 
phers say, Addison's action was not kindly to Pope, it was 
bare justice to poor Denni.s. Pope undoubtedly must have 
been bitterly vexed at the implied rebuff, and not the less 
because it was perfectly just. He seems always to have 
regarded men of Dennis's type as outside the pale of hu- 
manity. Their abuse stung him as keenly as if they had 
been entitled to speak with authority, and yet he retorted 
it as though they were not entitled to common decency. 
He would, to all appearance, have regarded an appeal for 
mercy to a Grub-street author much as Dandie Dinmont 
regarded Brown's tenderness to a " brock " — as a proof of 
incredible imbecility, or, I'ather, of want of proper antipa- 
thy to vermin. Dennis, like Philips, was inscribed on the 
long list of his hatreds ; and was pursued almost to the 
end of his unfortunate life. Pope, it is true, took great 
credit to himself for helping his miserable enemy when 



54 POPE. [chap. 

dying in distress, and wrote a prologue to a play acted for 
his benefit. Yet even this prologue is a sneer, and one is 
glad to think that Dennis was past understanding it. We 
hardly know whether to pity or to condemn the unfortu- 
nate poet, whose unworthy hatreds made him suffer far 
worse torments than those which he could inflict upon 
their objects. 

By this time we may suppose that Pope must have been 
regarded with anything but favour in the Addison circle ; 
and, in fact, he was passing into the opposite camp, and 
forming a friendship with Swift and Swift's pati'ons. No 
open rupture followed with Addison for the present; but 
a quarrel was approaching which is, perhaps, the most cele- 
brated in our literary history. Unfortunately, the more 
closely we look, the more difficult it becomes to give any 
definite account of it. The statements upon which ac- 
counts have been based have been chiefly those of Pope 
himself; and these involve inconsistencies and demonstra- 
bly inaccurate statements. Pope was anxious in later life 
to show that he had enjoyed the friendship of a man so 
generally beloved, and was equally anxious to show that 
he had behaved generously and been treated with injus- 
tice and, indeed, with downright treachery. And yet, after 
reading the various statements made by the oi-iginal au- 
thorities, one begins to doubt Avhether there was any real 
quarrel at all ; or rather, if one may say so, whether it was 
not a quarrel upon one side. 

It is, indeed, plain that a coolness had sprung up be- 
tween Pope and Addison. Considering Pope's offences 
against the senate, his ridicule of Philips, his imposition of 
that ridicule upon Steele, and his indefensible use of Addi- 
son's fame as a stalking-horse in the attack upon Dennis, 
it is not surprising that he should have been kept at arm's 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 55 

length. If the rod suspended by Pliilips at Button's be 
autlientic (as seems probable), the talk about Pope, in the 
shadow of such an ornament, is easily imaginable. Some 
attempts seem to have been made at a reconciliation. 
Jervas, Pope's teacher in painting — a bad artist, but a 
kindly man — tells Pope on August 20, 1714, of a conver- 
sation with Addison. It would have been worth while, he 
says, for Pope to have been hidden behind a wainscot or a 
half-length picture to have heard it. Addison expressed a 
wish for friendly relations, was glad that Pope had not 
been " carried too far among the enemy " by Swift, and 
hoped to be of use to him at Court — for Queen Anne died 
on August 1st; the wheel had turned; and the Whigs 
were once more the distributors of patronage. Pope's an- 
swer to Jervas is in the dignified tone ; he attributes Addi- 
son's coolness to the ill offices of Philips, and is ready to 
be on friendly terms whenever Addison recognises his true 
character and independence of party. Another letter foU 
lows, as addressed by Pope to Addison himself ; but here, 
alas ! if not in the preceding letters, we are upon doubtful 
ground. In fact, it is impossible to doubt that the letter 
has been manipulated after Pope's fashion, if not actually 
fabricated. It is so dignified as to be insulting. It is 
like a box on the ear administered by a pedagogue to a re- 
pentant but not quite pardoned pupil. Pope has heard 
(from Jervas, it is implied) of Addison's profession ; he is 
glad to hope that the effect of some " late malevolences " 
is disappearing ; he will not believe (that is, he is strongly 
inclined to believe) that the author of Cato could mean 
one thing and say another ; he will show Addison his first 
two books of Homer as a proof of this confidence, and 
hopes that it will not be abused ; he challenges Addison 
to point out the ill nature in the Essay iqwn Criticism ; 



56 rOPE. [chap. 

and winds up by making an utterly irrelevant charge (as a 
proof, lie says, of his own sincerity) of plagiarism against 
one of Addison's Sjiectators. Had such a letter been act- 
ually sent as it now stands, Addison's good nature could 
scarcely have held out. As it is, we can only assume that 
during 1714 Pope was on such terms with the clique at 
Button's, that a quarrel would be a natural result. Ac- 
cording to the ordinary account the occasion presented it- 
self in the next year, 

A translation of the first Iliad by Tickell appeared (in 
June, 1715) simultaneously with Pope's first volume. Pope 
had no right to complain. No man could be supposed to 
have a monopoly in the translation of Homer, Tickell 
had the same right to try his hand as Pope; and Pope 
fully understood this himself. He described to Spence a 
conversation in which Addison told him of Tickell's in- 
tended work. Pope replied that Tickell was perfectly jus- 
tified. Addison having looked over Tickell's translation 
of the first book, said that he would prefer not to see 
Pope's, as it might suggest double dealing ; but consented 
to read Pope's second book, and praised it warmly. In 
all this, by Pope's own showing, Addison seems to have 
been scrupulously fair ; and if he and the little senate pre- 
ferred Tickell's work on its first appearance, they had a 
full right to their opinion, and Pope triumphed easily 
enough to pardon them. " He was meditating a criticism 
upon Tickell," says Johnson, " when his adversary sank 
before him without a blow." Pope's performance was 
universally preferred, and even Tickell himself yielded by 
anticipation. He said, in a short preface, that he had 
abandoned a plan of translating the whole Iliad on finding 
that a much abler hand had undertaken the work, and that 
he only published this specimen to bespeak favour for a 



II.] FIRST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 51 

translation of the Odyssey. It was, say Pope's apologists, 
an awkward circumstance that Tickell should publish at 
the same time as Pope, and that is about all that they can 
say. It was, we may reply in Stephenson's phrase, very 
awkward — for Tickell. In all this, in fact, it seems im- 
possible for any reasonable man to discover anything of 
which Pope had the slightest ground of complaint ; but 
his amazingly irritable nature was not to be calmed by 
I'eason. The bare fact that a translation of Homer ap- 
peared contemporaneously with his own, and that it came 
from one of Addison's court, made him furious. He 
brooded over it, suspected some dark conspiracy again.st 
his fame, and gradually mistook his morbid fancies for 
solid inference. He thought that Tickell had been put 
up by Addison as his rival, and gradually worked himself 
into the further belief that Addison himself had actually 
written the translation which passed under Tickell's name. 
It does not appear, so far as I know, when or how this sus- 
picion became current. Some time after Addison's death, 
in 1719, a quarrel took place between Tickell, his literary 
executor, and Steele. Tickell seemed to insinuate that 
Steele had not sufficiently acknowledged his obligations to 
Addison, and Steele, in an angry retort, called Tickell the 
" reputed translator " of the first Iliad, and challenged him 
to translate another book successfully. The innuendo 
shows that Steele, who certainly had some means of know- 
ing, was willing to suppose that Tickell had been helped 
by Addison. The manuscript of Tickell's work, which has 
been preserved, is said to prove this to be an error, and in 
any case there is no real ground for supposing that Addi- 
son did anything more than he admittedly told Pope, that 
is, read Tickell's manuscript and suggest corrections. 

To argue seriously about other so-called proofs would 



58 POPE. [chap. 

be waste of time. They prove nothing except Pope's ex- 
treme anxiety to justify his wild hypothesis of a dark con- 
spiracy. Pope was jealous, spiteful, and credulous. He 
was driven to fury by Tickell's publication, which had the 
appearance of a competition. But angry as he was, he 
could find no real cause of complaint, except by imagining 
a fictitious conspiracy ; and this complaint was never pub- 
licly uttered till long after Addison's death. Addison 
knew, no doubt, of Pope's wrath, but probably cared little 
for it, except to keep himself clear of so dangerous a com- 
panion. He seems to have remained on terms of civility 
with his antagonist, and no one would bave been more sur- 
prised than he to hear of the quarrel, upon which so much 
controversy has been expended. 

The whole affair, so far as Addison's character is con- 
cerned, thus appears to be a gigantic mare's nest. There 
is no proof, or even the slightest presumption, that Addi- 
son or Addison's friends ever injured Pope, though it is 
clear that they did not love him. It would have been 
marvellous if they had. Pope's suspicions are a proof 
that in this case he was almost subject to tlie illusion 
characteristic of actual insanity. The belief that a man is 
persecuted by hidden conspirators is one of the common 
symptoms in such cases ; and Pope would seem to have 
been almost in the initial stage of mental disease. His 
madness, indeed, was not such as would lead us to call him 
morally irresponsible, nor was it the kind of madness 
which is to be found in a good many people who well de- 
serve criminal prosecution ; but it was a state of mind so 
morbid as to justify some compassion for the unhappy 
offender. 

One result besides the illustration of Pope's character 
remains to be noticed. According to Pope's assertion it 



II.] FIKST PERIOD OF POPE'S LITERARY CAREER. 59 

was a communication from Lord Warwick which led him 
to write his celebrated copy of verses upon Addison. War- 
wick (afterwards Addison's step-son) accused Addison of 
paying Gildon for a gross libel upon Pope. Pope wrote 
to Addison, he says, the next day. He said in this letter 
that he knew of Addison's behaviour — and that, unwill- 
ing to take a revenge of the same kind, he would rather 
tell Addison fairly of his faults in plain words. If he 
had to take such a step, it would be in some such way 
as followed, and he subjoined the first sketch of the fa- 
mous lines. Addison, says Pope, used him very civilly 
ever afterwards. Indeed, if the account be true, Addison 
showed his Christian spirit by paying a compliment in 
one of his Freeholders (May 17, 1*716) to Pope's Homer. 
Macaulay, taking the story for granted, praises Addi- 
son's magnanimity, which, I must confess, I should be 
hardly Christian enough to admire. It was, however, as- 
serted at the time that Pope had not written the verses 
which have made the quarrel memorable till after Addi- 
son's death. They were not published till 1723, and are 
not mentioned by any independent authority till 1722, 
though Pope afterwards appealed to Burlington as a 
witness to their earlier composition. The fact seems to 
be confirmed by the evidence of Lady M. W. Montagu, 
but it does not follow that Addison ever saw the verses. 
He knew that Pope disliked him ; but he probably did 
not suspect the extent of the hostility. Pope himself ap- 
pears not to have devised the worst part of the story — 
that of Addison having used Tickell's name — till some 
years later. Addison was sufficiently magnanimous in 
praising his spiteful little antagonist as it was ; he little 
knew how deeply that antagonist would seek to injure his 
reputation. 



60 POPE. [chap. II. 

And here, before passing to the work wliicli afforded 
the main pretext of the quarrel, it may be well to quote 
once more the celebrated satire. It may be remarked 
that its excellence is due in part to the fact that, for once, 
Pope does not lose his temper. His attack is qualified 
and really sharpened by an admission of Addison's excel- 
lence. It is, therefore, a real masterpiece of satire, not a 
simple lampoon. That it is an exaggeration is undenia- 
ble, and yet its very keenness gives a presumption that it 
is not altogether without foundation. 

" Peace to all such ! but were there one whose fires 
True genius kindles and fair fame inspires ; 
Blest with each talent and each art to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease; 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne : 
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise ; 
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer. 
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike ; 
Just hint a fault and hesitate dislike; 
Alike reserved to praise or to commend, 
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; 
Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieged. 
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged ; 
Like Cato, give his little senate laws. 
And sit attentive to his own applause; 
While wits and templars every sentence raise, 
And wonder with a foolish face of praise ; 
Who would not laugh if such a man there be ? 
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ?" 



CHAPTER III. 

pope's homer. 

Pope's uneasy relations with tlie wits at Button's were 
no obstacle to his success elsewhere. Swift, now at the 
height of his power, was pleased by his Windsor Forest, 
recommended it to Stella, and soon made the author's ac- 
quaintance. The first letter in their long correspondence 
is a laboured but fairly successful piece of pleasantry from 
Pope, upon Swift's having offered twenty guineas to the 
young Papist to change his religion. It is dated Decem- 
ber 8, 1713. In the preceding month Bishop Kennet saw 
Swift in all his glory, and wrote an often quoted descrip- 
tion of the scene. Swift was bustling about in the royal 
antechamber, swelling with conscious importance, distrib- 
uting advice, promising patronage, whispering to ministers, 
and filling the whole room with his presence. He finally 
*' instructed a young nobleman that the best poet in Eng- 
land was Mr. Pope, a Papist, who had begun a translation 
of Homer into English verse, for which he must have them 
all subscribe ; ' for,' says he, ' the author shall not begin 
to print till I have a thousand guineas for him !' " Swift 
introduced Pope to some of the leaders of the ministry, 
and he was soon acquainted with Oxford, Bolingbroke, 
Atterbury, and many other men of high position. Pope 
was not disinclined to pride himself upon his familiarity 



62 POPE. [chap. 

with the great, though boasting at the same time of his 
independence. In truth, the morbid vanity which was his 
cardinal weakness seems to have partaken sufficiently of 
the nature of genuine self-respect to preserve him from 
any unworthy concessions. If he flattered, it was as one 
who expected to be repaid in kind ; and though his posi- 
tion was calculated to turn the head of a youth of five-and- 
twenty, he took his place as a right without humiliating 
his own dignity. Whether from principle or prudence, he 
judiciously kept himself free from identification with either 
party, and both sides took a pride in supporting the great 
literary undertaking which he had now announced. 

When Pope first circulated his proposals for translating 
Homer, Oxford and Bolingbroke were fellow-ministers, and 
Swift was their most effective organ in the press. At the 
time at which his first volume appeared, Bolingbroke was 
in exile, Oxford under impeachment, and Swift had retired, 
savagely and sullenly, to his deanery. Yet, through all the 
intervening political tempest, the subscription list grew and 
flourished. The pecuniary result was splendid. No author 
had ever made anything approaching the sum which Pope 
received, and very few authors, even in the present age of 
gold, would despise such payment. The details of the 
magnificent bargain have been handed down, and give the 
pecuniary measure of Pope's reputation. 

The Iliad was to be published in six volumes. For each 
volume Lintot was to pay 2001. ; and, besides this, he was 
to supply Pope gratuitously with the copies for his sub- 
scribers. The subscribers paid a guinea a volume, and, as 
575 subscribers took 654 copies. Pope received altogether 
5320?. 4s. at the regular price, whilst some royal and dis- 
tinguished subscribers paid larger sums. By the publica- 
tion of the Odyssey Pope seems to have made about 3500/. 



III.] POPE'S HOMER. 63 

more/ after paying Lis assistants. The result was, there- 
fore, a total profit at least approaching 9000^. The last 
volume of the Odyssey did not appear till 1726, and the 
payments were thus spread over eleven years. Pope, how- 
ever, saved enough to be more than comfortable. In the 
South Sea excitement he ventured to speculate ; but though 
for a time he fancied himself to have made a large sum, he 
seems to have retired rather a loser than a gainer. But 
he could say with perfect truth that, " thanks to Homer," 
he " could live and thrive, indebted to no prince or peer 
alive." The money success is, however, of less interest to 
us than the literary. Pope put his best work into the 
translation of the Iliad. His responsibility, he said, weighed 
upon him terribly on starting. lie used to dream of being 
on a long journey, uncertain which way to go, and doubt- 
ing whether he would ever get to the end. Gradually he 
fell into the habit of translating thirty or forty verses be- 
fore getting up, and then " piddling with it " for the rest 
of the morning; and the regular performance of his task 
made it tolerable. He used, he said at another time, to 
take advantage of the " first heat," then correct by the 
original and other translations; and finally to "give it a 
reading for the versification only." The statement must 
be partly modified by the suggestion that the translations 
were probably consulted before the original. Pope's igno- 
rance of Greek — an awkward qualification for a translator 
of Homer — is undeniable. Gilbert Wakefield, who was, I 
believe, a fair scholar, and certainly a great admirer of 
Pope, declares his conviction to be, after a more careful 
examination of the Homer than any one is now likely to 
give, that Pope "collected the general purport of every 

' See Elwin's Pope, Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 129. 
4 



64 POPE. [chap. 

passage from some of his predecessors — Dryden" (who 
only translated the first Iliad), " Dacier, Chapman, or Ogil- 
by," He thinks that Pope would have been puzzled to 
catch at once the meaning even of the Latin translation, 
and points out proofs of his ignorance of both languages, 
and of " ignominious and puerile mistakes." 

It is hard to understand at the present day the audacity 
which could lead a man so ill qualified in point of classical 
acquirements to undertake such a task. And yet Pope un- 
doubtedly achieved, in some true sense, an astonishing suc- 
cess. He succeeded commercially ; for Lintot, after sup- 
plying the subscription copies gratuitously, and so losing 
the cream of the probable purchasers, made a fortune by 
the remaining sale. He succeeded in the judgment both 
of the critics and of the public of the next generation. 
Johnson calls the Homer " the noblest version of poetry 
the world has ever seen." Gray declared that no other 
translation would ever equal it, and Gibbon that it had 
every merit except that of faithfulness to the original. 
This merit of fidelity, indeed, was scarcely claimed by any 
one. Bentley's phrase — " a pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but 
you must not call it Homer " — expresses the uniform view 
taken from the first by all who could read both. Its 
fame, however, survived into the present century. Byron 
speaks — and speaks, I think, with genuine feeling — of 
the rapture with which he first read Pope as a boy, and 
says that no one will ever lay him down except for the 
original. Indeed, the testimonies of opponents are as sig- 
nificant as those of admirers. Johnson remarks that the 
Homer "may be said to have tuned the English tongue," 
and that no writer since its appearance has wanted mel- 
ody. Coleridge virtually admits the fact, though draw- 
ing a different conclusion, when he says that the trans- 



III.] POPE'S HOMER. 65 

lation of Horaer has been one of the main sources of that 
" pseudo-poetic diction " which he and Wordsworth were 
struggling to put out of credit. Cowper, the earUest rep- 
resentative of the same movement, tried to supplant Pope's 
Homer by his own, and his attempt proved at least the 
position held in general estimation by his rival. If, in 
fact, Pope's Homer was a recognized model for near a 
century, we may dislike the style, but we must admit the 
power implied in a performance which thus became the 
accepted standard of style for the best part of a century. 
How, then, should we estimate the merits of this remark- 
able work? I give my own opinion upon the subject 
with diffidence, for it has been discussed by eminently 
qualified critics, ' The conditions of a satisfactory transla- 
tion of Homer have been amply canvassed, and many ex- 
periments have been made by accomplished poets who 
have — what Pope certainly had not — a close acquaintance 
with the original, and a fine appreciation of its superlative 
beauties. From the point of view now generally adopted, 
the task even of criticism requires this double qualifica- 
tion. Not only can no man translate Homer, but no man 
can even criticise a translation of Homer, without being at 
once a poet and a fine classical scholar. So far as this is 
true, I can only apologize for speaking at all, and should 
be content to refer my readers to such able guides as Mr. 
Matthew Arnold and the late Professor Conington, And 
yet I think that something remains to be said which 
has a bearing upon Pope, however little it may concern 
Homer. 

We — if " we " means modern writers of some classical 
culture — can claim to appreciate Homer iav- better than 
the contemporaries of Pope. But our appreciation in- 
volves a clear recognition of the vast difference between 



66 rorE. [chap. 

ourselves and the ancient Greeks. We see the Homeric 
poems in their true perspective through the dim vista of 
shadowy centuries. We regard them as the growth of a 
long past stage in the historical evolution ; implying a 
different social order — a different ideal of life — an archaic 
conception of the world and its forces, only to be recon- 
structed for the imagination by help of long training and 
serious study. The multiplicity of the laws imposed upon 
the translator is the consequence of this perception. They 
amount to saying that a man must manage to project 
himself into a distant period, and saturate his mind with 
the corresponding modes of life. If the feat is possible 
at all, it requires a great and conscious effort, and the at- 
tainment of a state of mind which can only be preserved 
by constant attention. The translator has to wear a 
mask which is always in danger of being rudely shattered. 
Such an intellectual feat is likely to produce what, in the 
most obvious sense, one would call highly artificial work. 
Modern classicism must be fine-spun, and smell rather of 
the hot-house than. the open air. Undoubtedly some ex- 
quisite literary achievements have been accomplished in 
this spirit ; but they are, after all, calculated for the small 
circle of cultivated minds, and many of their merits can 
be appreciated only by professors qualified by special 
training. Most frequently we can hope for pretty play- 
things, or, at best, for skilful restorations which show 
learning and taste far more distinctly than a glowing im- 
agination. But even if an original poet can breathe some 
spirit into classical poems, the poor translator, with the 
dread of philologists and antiquarians in the backgi'ound, 
is so fettered that free movement becomes almost impos- 
sible. No one, I should venture to prophesy, will really 
succeed in such work unless he frankly accepts the im- 



III.] POPE'S HOMER. 67 

possibility of reproducing the original, and aims only at 
an equivalent for some of its aspects. The perception of 
this change will enable us to realize Pope's mode of ap- 
proaching the problem. The condemnatory epithet most 
frequently applied to him is " artificial ;" and yet, as I 
have just said, a modern translator is surely more artifi- 
cial, so far as he is attempting a more radical transforma- 
tion of his own thougiits into the forms of a past epoch. 
But we can easily see in what sense Pope's work fairly 
deserves the name. The poets of an older period frank- 
ly adopted the classical mythology without any apparent 
sense of incongruity. They mix heathen deities with 
Christian saints, and the ancient heroes adopt the man- 
ners of chivalrous romance without the slightest difficulty. 
The freedom was still granted to the writers of the renais- 
sance. Milton makes Phoebus and St. Peter discourse in 
successive stanzas, as if they belonged to the same pan- 
theon. For poetical purposes the old gods are simply 
canonized as Christian saints, as in a more theological 
frame of mind they are regarded as devils. In the reign 
of common sense this was no longer possible. The incon- 
gruity was recognized and condemned. The gods were 
vanishing under the clearer light, as modern thought be- 
gan more consciously to assert its independence. Yet the 
unreality of the old mythology is not felt to be any ob- 
jection to their use as conventional symbols. Homer's 
gods, says Pope in his preface, are still the gods of poetry. 
Their vitality was nearly extinct, but they were regarded 
as convenient personifications of abstract qualities, ma- 
chines for epic poetry, or figures to be used in allegory. 
In the absence of a true historical perception, the same 
view was attributed to Homer. Homer, as Pope admits, 
did not invent the gods, but he was the " first who 



68 POPE. [chap. 

brought tliern into a system of macliinery for poetrj'," 
and showed his fertile imagination by clothing the prop- 
erties of the elements, and the virtues and vices in forms 
and persons. And thus Pope does not feel that he is 
diverging from the spirit of the old mythology when he 
regards the gods, not as the spontaneous growth of the 
primitive imagination, but as deliberate contrivances in- 
tended to convey moral truth in allegorical fables, and 
probably devised by sages for the good of the vulgar. 

The old gods, then, were made into stiff mechanical 
figures, as dreary as Justice with her scales, or Fame blow- 
ing a trumpet on a monument. They belonged to that 
family of dismal personifications which it was customary 
to mark with the help of capital letters. Certainly they 
are a dismal and frigid set of beings, though they still 
lead a shivering existence on the tops of public monu- 
ments, and hold an occasional wreath over the head of a 
British grenadier. To identify the Homeric gods with 
these wearisome constructions was to have a more serious 
disqualification for fully entering into Homer's spirit than 
even an imperfect acquaintance with Greek, and Pope is 
greatly exercised in his mind by their eating, and drink- 
ing, and fighting, and uncompromising anthropomorphism. 
He apologizes for his author, and tries to excuse him 
for unwilling compliance with popular prejudices. The 
Homeric theology, he urges, was still substantially sound, 
and Homer had always a distinct moral and political pur- 
pose. The Iliad, for example, was meant to show the 
wickedness of quarrelling, and the evil results of an insa- 
tiable thirst for glory, though shallow persons have thought 
that Homer only thought to please. 

The artificial diction about which so much has been 
said is the natural vehicle of this treatment. The set of 



III.] POPE'S HOMER. 69 

phrases, and the peculiar mould into which his sentences 
were cast, was already the accepted type for poetry which 
aimed at dignity. He was following Dryden, as his own 
performance became the law for the next generation. The 
style in which a woman is called a nymph — and women 
generally are " the fair " — in which shepherds are con- 
scious swains, and a poet invokes the muses and strikes 
a lyre, and breathes on a reed, and a nightingale singing 
becomes Philomel " pouring her throat," represents a 
fashion as worn out as hoops and wigs. By the time of 
Wordsworth it was a mere survival — a dead form remain- 
ing after its true function had entirely vanished. The 
proposal to return to the language of common life was the 
natural revolt of one who desired poetry to be above all 
things the genuine expression of real emotion. Yet it is, 
I think, impossible to maintain that the diction of poetry 
should be simply that of common life. 

The true principle would rather seem to be that any 
style becomes bad when it dies ; when it is used merely 
as a tradition, and not as the best mode of producing the 
desired impression ; and when, therefore, it represents a 
rule imposed from without, and is not an expression of 
the spontaneous working of minds in which the corre- 
sponding impulse is thoroughly incarnated. In such a 
case, no doubt, the diction becomes a bui'den, and a man 
is apt to fancy himself a poet because he is the slave of 
the external form, instead of using it as the most familiar 
instrument. By Wordsworth's time the Pope style was 
thus effete ; what ought to be the dress of thought had 
become the rigid armour into which thought was forcibly 
compressed, and a revolt was inevitable. We may agree, 
too, that his peculiar style was in a sense artificial, even 
in the days of Pope. It had come into existence during 



70 POPE. [chap. 

the reign of the Restoration wits, under the influence of 
foreign models, not as the spontaneous outgrowth of a 
gradual development, and had therefore something me- 
chanical and conscious, even when it flourished most vig- 
orously. It came in with the periwigs, to which it is so 
often compared, and, like the artificial head-gear, was an 
attempt to give a dignified or full-dress appearance to the 
average prosaic human being. Having this innate weak- 
ness of pomposity and exaggeration, it naturally expired, 
and became altogether ridiculous, with the generation to 
which it belonged. As the wit or man of the world had 
at bottom a very inadequate conception of epic poetry, he 
became inevitably strained and contorted when he tried to 
give himself the airs of a poet. 

After making all such deductions, it would still seem 
that the bare fact that he w'as working in a generally ac- 
cepted style gave Pope a very definite advantage. He 
spoke more or less in a falsetto, but he could at once strike 
a key intelligible to his audience. An earlier poet would 
simply annex Homer's gods and fix them with a mediaeval 
framework. A more modern poet tries to find some style 
which will correspond to the Homeric as closely as possi- 
ble, and feels that he is making an experiment beset with 
all manner of difficulties. Pope needed no more to both- 
er himself about such matters than about grammatical or 
philological refinements. He found a ready-made style 
which was assumed to be correct ; he had to write in regu- 
lar rhymed couplets, as neatly rhymed and tersely express- 
ed as might be ; and the diction was equally settled. He 
was to keep to Homer for the substance, but he could 
throw in any little ornaments to suit the taste of his read- 
ers ; and if they found out a want of scrupulous fidelity, 
he might freely say that he did not aim at such details. 



III.] POPE'S HOMER. -71 

Worlviiio-, therefore, upon the given tlata, lie could enjoy a 
considerable amount of freedom, and throw his whole en- 
ergy into the task of forcible expression without feeling 
himself trammelled at every step. The result would cer- 
tainly not be Homer, but it might be a fine epic poem as 
epic poetry was understood in the days of Anne and George 
I. — a hybrid genus, at the best ; something without enough 
constitutional vigour to be valuable when really original, 
but not without a merit of its own when modelled upon 
the lines laid down in the great archetype. 

When we look at Pope's Iliad upon this understanding, 
we cannot fail, I think, to admit that it has merits which 
make its great success intelligible. If we read it as a 
purely English poem, the sustained vivacity and emphasis 
of the style give it a decisive superiority over its rivals. 
It has become the fashion to quote Chapman since the 
noble sonnet in which Keats, in testifying to the power 
of the Elizabethan translator, testifies rather to his own 
exquisite perception. Chapman was a poet worthy of our 
great poetic period, and Pope himself testifies to the " dar- 
ing fiery spirit" which animates his translation, and says 
that it is not uidike what Homer himself might have writ- 
ten in his youth — surely not a grudging praise. But 
though this is true, I will venture to assert that Chapman 
also sins, not merely by his love of quaintness, but by con- 
stantly indulging in sheer doggerel. If his lines do not 
stagnate, they foam and fret like a mountain brook, in- 
stead of flowing continuously and majestically like a great 
river. He surpasses Pope chiefly, as it seems to me, where 
Pope's conventional verbiage smothers and conceals some 
vivid image from nature. Pope, of course, was a thorough 
man of forms, and when he has to speak of sea, or sky, or 
mountain, generally draws upon the current coin of poetic 
4* 



72 POPE. [chap. 

pliraseology, wliicli has lost all sharpness of impression in 
its long circulation. Here, for example, is Pope's version 
of a simile in the fourth book : — 

" As when the winds, ascending by degrees. 
First move the whitening surface of tlie seas, 
Tlie billows float in order to the shore, 
The waves behind roll on the waves before. 
Till with the growing storm the deeps arise. 
Foam o'er the rocks, and thunder to the skies." 

Each phrase is either wrong or escapes from error by vague- 
ness, and one would swear that Pope had never seen the 
sea. Chapman says, — 

" And as when with the west wind flaws, the sea thrusts up her 
waves 
One after other, thick and high, upon the groaning shores. 
First in herself loud, but opposed with banks and rocks she roars, 
And all her back in bristles set, spits every way her foam." 

This is both clumsy and introduces the quaint and unau- 
thorized image of a pig, but it is unmistakably vivid. 
Pope is equally troubled when he has to deal with Ho- 
mer's downright vernacular. He sometimes ventures apol- 
ogetically to give the original word. He allows Achilles to 
speak pretty vigorously to Agamemnon in the first book : — 

"0 monster! mix'd of insolence and fear. 
Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer !" 

Chapman translates the phrase more fully, but adds a char- 
acteristic quibble : — 

" Thou ever steep'd in wine. 
Dog's face, with heart but of a hart." 

Tickcll manages the imputation of .drink, but has to slur 
over the doo; and the deer : — 



III.] POPE'S HOMER. IB 

" Valiant with wine and furious from the bowl, 
Thou fierce-look'd talker, with a coward soul." 

Elsewhere Pope hesitates in the use of such plain speak- 
ing. He allows Teucev to call Hector a dog, but apologises 
in a note. " This is literal from the Greek," he says, " and 
I have ventured it ;" though he quotes Milton's " dogs of 
hell" to back himself with a precedent. But he cannot 
quite stand Homer's downright comparison of Ajax to an 
ass, and speaks of him in gingerly fashion as — 

" The slow beast with heavy strength endued." 

Pope himself thinks the passage " inimitably just and 
beautiful ;" but on the whole, he says, " a translator owes 
so much to the taste of the age in which he lives as not to 
make too great a compliment to the former [age] ; and 
this induced me to omit the mention of the word ass in 
the translation." Boileau and Longinus, he tells us, would 
approve the omission of mean and vulgar words. " Ass " 
is the vilest word imaginable in English or Latin, but of 
dignity enough in Greek and Hebrew to be employed " on 
the most magnificent occasions." 

The Homeric phrase is thus often muffled and deadened 
by Pope's verbiage. Dignity of a kind is gained at the 
cost of energy. If such changes admit of some apology 
as an attempt to preserve what is undoubtedly a Homeric 
characteristic, we must admit that the "dignity" is often 
false ; it rests upon mere mouthing instead of simplicity 
and directness, and suggests that Pope might have ap- 
proved the famous emendation " he died in indigent cir- 
cumstances," for " he died poor." The same weakness is 
perhaps more annoying when it leads to sins of commis- 
sion. Pope never scruples to amend Homer by little epi- 
grammatic amplifications, which are characteristic of the 



74 POPE. [chap. 

contemporary rhetoric. A single illustration of a fault 
sutliciently notorious will be sufficient. When Nestor, in 
tlie eleventh book, rouses Diomed at night, Pope naturally 
smoothes down the testy remark of the sleepy warrior; 
but he tries to improve Nestor's directions. Nestor tells 
Diomed, in most direct terms, that the need is great, and 
that he must go at once and rouse Ajax. In Pope's trans- 
lation we have — 

" Each single Greek in this conclusive strife 
Stands on the sharpest edge of death or life ; 
Yet if my years thy liind regard engage. 
Employ thy youth as I employ my age ; 
Succeed to these my cares, and rouse the rest ; 
He serves me most who serves his country best." 

The false air of epigram which Pope gives to the fourth 
line is characteristic ; and the concluding tag, which is 
quite unauthorized, reminds us irresistibly of one of the 
rhymes which an actor always spouted to the audience by 
way of winding up an act in the contemporary drama. 
Such embroidery is profusely applied by Pope wherever 
he thinks that Homer, like Diomed, is slumbering too 
deeply. And, of course, tliat is not the way in which 
Nestor roused Diomed or Homer keeps his readers awake. 
Such faults have been so fully exposed that we need not 
dwell upon them further. They come to this, that Pope 
was really a wit of the days of Queen Anne, and saw only 
that aspect of Homer which was visible to his kind. The 
poetic mood was not for him a fine frenzy — for good sense 
must condemn all frenzy — but a deliberate elevation of the 
bard by high-heeled shoes and a full-bottomed wig. Seas 
and mountains, being invisible from Button's, could only 
be described by worn phrases from the Latin grammar. 
Even his narrative must bo full of epigrams to avoid the 



III.] POPE'S HOMER. T5 

one deadly sin of dulness, and his language must be dec- 
orous even at the price of being sometimes emasculated. 
But accept these conditions, and much still remains. After 
all, a wit was still a human being, and much more nearly 
related to us than an ancient Greek. Pope's style, when 
he is at his best, has the merit of being thoroughly alive ; 
there are no dead masses of useless verbiage ; every ex- 
crescence has been carefully pruned away ; slovenly para- 
phrases and indistinct slurrings over of the meaning have 
disappeared. He corrected carefully and scrupulously, as 
his own statement implies, not with a view of transferring 
as large a portion as possible of his author's meaning to 
his own verses, but in order to make the versification as 
smooth and the sense as transparent as possible. We have 
the pleasure which we receive from really polished oratory; 
every point is made to tell ; if the emphasis is too often 
pointed by some showy antithesis, we are at least never un- 
certain as to the meaning ; and if the versification is often 
monotonous, it is articulate and easily caught at first sight. 
These are the essential merits of good declamation, and it 
is in the true declamatory passages that Pope is at his 
best. The speeches of his heroes are often admirable, full 
of spirit, well balanced and skilfully arranged pieces of 
rhetoric — not a mere inorganic series of observations. 
Undoubtedly the warriors are a little too epigrammatic 
and too consciously didactic ; and we feel almost scan- 
dalized when they take to downright blows, as though 
Walpole and St. John were interrupting a debate in the 
House of Commons by fisticuffs. They would be better 
in,, the senate than the field. But the brilliant rhetoric im- 
plies also a sense of dignity which is not mere artificial 
mouthing. Pope, as it seems to me, rises to a level of sus- 
tained eloquence when he has to act as interpreter for the 



76 POPE. [chap. 

direct expression of broad, magnanimous sentiment. Clas- 
sical critics may explain by what shades of feeling the 
aristocratic grandeur of soul of an English noble differed 
from the analogous quality in heroic Greece, and find the 
difference reflected in the "grand style" of Pope as com- 
pared with that of Homer. But Pope could at least as- 
sume with admirable readiness the lofty air of superiority 
to personal fears, and patriotic devotion to a great cause, 
which is common to the type in every age. His tendency 
to didactic platitudes is at least out of place in such cases, 
and his dread of vulgarity and quaintness, with his genuine 
feeling for breadth of effect, frequently enables him to be 
really dignified and impressive. It will, perhaps, be suflS- 
cient illustration of these qualities if I conclude these re- 
marks by giving his translation of Hector's speech to 
Polydamas in the twelfth book, with its famous eIq olcjydg 
cipKTTOQ afivveffdai irepi TrarprjQ. 

" To bim then Hector with disdahi return'd ; 
(Fierce as he spoke, his eyes with fury burn'd) — 
Are these the faithful counsels of thy tongue ? 
Thy will is partial, not thy reason wrong ; 
Or if the purpose of thy heart thou sent, 
Sure Heaven resumes the little sense it lent — 
What coward counsels would thy madness move 
Against the word, the will reveal'd of Jove? 
The leading sign, the irrevocable nod 
And happy thunders of the favouring God ? 
These shall I slight ? And guide my wavering mind 
By wand'ring birds that flit with every wind ? 
Ye vagrants of the sky ! your wings extend 
Or where the suns arise or where descend ; 
To right or left, unheeded take your way. 
While I the dictates of high heaven obey. 
Without a sigh his sword the brave man draws. 
And asks no omen but his country's cause. 



III.] POPE'S HOMER. 11 

But why should'st thou suspect the war's success ? 

None fears it more, as none promotes it less. 

Tho' all our ships amid yon ships expire, 

Trust thy own cowardice to escape the fire. 

Troy and her sons may find a general grave, 

But thou canst live, for thou canst be a slave. 

Yet should the fears that wary mind suggests 

Spread their cold poison through our soldiers' breasts, 

My javelin can revenge so base a part. 

And free the soul that quivers in thy heart." 

The six volumes of the Iliad were published during the 
years 1715-1720, and were closed by a dedication to Con- 
greve, who, as an eminent man of letters, not too closely 
connected with either Whigs or Tories, was the most ap- 
propriate recipient of such a compliment. Pope was en- 
riched by his success, and no doubt wearied by his labours. 
But his restless intellect would never leave him to indulge 
in prolonged repose, and, though not avaricious, he was 
not more averse than other men to increasing his for- 
tune. He soon undertook two sufficiently laborious 
works. The first was an edition of Shakspeare, for 
which he only received 217^. 10s., and which seems to 
have been regarded as a failure. It led, like his other 
publications, to a quarrel to be hereafter mentioned, but 
need not detain us at present. It appeared in 1725, when 
he was already deep in another project. The success of 
the Iliad naturally suggested an attempt upon the Odyssey. 
Pope, however, was tired of translating, and he arranged for 
assistance. He took into alliance a couple of Cambridge 
men, who were small poets capable of fairly adopting his 
versification. One of them was William Broome, a cler- 
gyman who held several livings and married a rich widow. 
Unfortunately his independence did not restrain him from 
writing poetry, for which want of means would have been 



78 POPE. [chap. 

the only snfRcient excuse. lie was a man of some class- 
ical attainments, and had helped Pope in compiling notes 
to the Iliad from Eustathius, an author whom Pope 
would have been scarcely able to read without such as- 
sistance, Elijah Fenton, his other assistant, was a Cam- 
bridge man who had sacrificed his claims of preferment 
by becoming a non-juror, and picked up a living partly 
by writing and chiefly by acting as tutor to Lord Orrery, 
and afterwards in the family of TrumbalFs widow. Pope, 
who introduced him to Lady Trumball, had also intro- 
duced him to Craggs, who, when Secretary of State, felt 
his want of a decent education, and wished to be polished 
by some competent person. He seems to have been a 
kindly, idle, honourable man, who died, says Pope, of in- 
dolence, and more immediately, it appears, of the gout. 
The alliance thus formed was rather a delicate one, and 
was embittered by some of Pope's usual trickery. In is- 
suing his proposals he spoke in ambiguous terms of two 
friends who were to render him some undefined assist- 
ance, and did not claim to be the translator, but to have 
undertaken the translation. The assistants, in fact, did 
half the work, Broome translating eight, and Fenton four, 
out of the twenty -four books. Pope was unwilling to 
acknowledge the full amount of their contributions ; he 
persuaded Broome — a weak, good-natured man — to set 
his hand to a postscript to the Odyssey, in which only 
three books are given to Broome himself, and only two 
to Fenton. When Pope was attacked for passing off 
other people's verses as his own, he boldly appealed to this 
statement to prove that he had only received Broome's 
help in three books, and at the same time stated the 
Avhole amount which he had paid for the eight, as though 
it had been paid for the three. When Broome, in spite 



III.] POPE'S HOMER. 79 

of his subservience, became a little restive under this treat- 
ment, Pope indirectly admitted the truth by claiming only 
twelve books in an advertisement to his works, and in a 
note to the Dunciad, but did not explicitly retract the 
other statement. Broome could not effectively rebuke 
his fellow-sinner. He had, in fact, conspired with Pope 
to attract the public by the use of the most popular 
name, and could not even claim his own afterwards. He 
had, indeed, talked too much, according to Pope ; and the 
poet's morality is oddly illustrated in a letter, in which he 
complains of Broome's indiscretion for letting out the se- 
cret; and explains that, as the facts are so far known, it 
would now be " unjust and dishonourable " to continue 
the concealment. It would be impossible to accept moi"e 
frankly the theory that lying is wrong when it is found 
out. Meanwhile Pope's conduct to his victims or accom- 
plices was not over-generous. He made over 3500/. after 
paying Broome 5001. (including lOOZ. for notes) and Fen- 
ton 200/. — that is, 50/. a book. The rate of pay was as 
high as the work was worth, and as much as it would 
fetch in the open market. The large sum was entirely 
due to Pope's reputation, though obtained, so far as the 
true authorship was concealed, upon something like false 
pretences. Still, we could have wished that he had been 
a little more liberal with his share of the plunder. A 
coolness ensued between the principal and his partners in 
consequence of these questionable dealings. Fenton seems 
never to have been reconciled to Pope, though they did not 
openly quarrel, and Pope wrote a laudatory epitaph for him 
on his death in 1730. Broome — a weaker man — though 
insulted by Pope in the Dunciad and the Miscellanies, ac- 
cepted a reconciliation, for which Pope seems to have been 



80 POPE. [chap. III. 

eager, perhaps feeling some touch of remorse for the inju- 
ries which he had inflicted. 

The shares of the three colleagues in the Odyssey are 
not to be easily distinguished by internal evidence. On 
trying the experiment by a cursory reading, I confess 
(though a critic does not willingly admit his fallibility) 
that I took some of Broome's work for Pope's, and, 
though closer study or an acuter perception might dis- 
criminate more accurately, I do not think that the dis- 
tinction would be easy. This may be taken to confirm 
the common theory that Pope's versification was a mere 
mechanical trick. Without admitting this, it must be ad- 
mitted that the external characteristics of his manner were 
easily caught ; and that it was not hard for a clever versi- 
fier to produce something closely resembling his inferior 
work, especially when following the same original. But 
it may be added that Pope's Odyssey was really inferior 
to the Iliad, both because his declamatory style is more 
out of place in its romantic narrative, and because he was 
weary and languid, and glad to turn his fame to account 
without more labour than necessary. The Odyssey, I 
may say, in conclusion, led to one incidental advantage. 
It was criticised by Spence, a mild and cultivated scholar, 
who was professor of poetry at Oxford. His observations, 
according to Johnson, were candid, though not indicative 
of a powerful mind. Pope, he adds, had in Spence the 
first experience of a critic " who censured with respect 
and praised with alacrity." Pope made Spence's acquaint- 
ance, recommended him to patrons, and was repaid with 
warm admiration." 



CHAPTER IV. 

POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 

When Pope finished his translation of tlie Iliad, he was 
congratulated by his friend Gay in a pleasant copy of 
verses marked by the usual bonhomie of the fat, kindly 
man. Gay supposes himself to be welcoming his friend 
on the return from his long expedition. 

" Did I not see thee when thou first sett'st sail, 
To seek adventures fair in Homer's land ? 

Did I not see thy sinking spirits fail, 

And wish thy bark had never left the strand ? 

Even in mid ocean often didst thou quail. 
And oft lift up thy holy eye and hand, 

Praying to virgin dear and saintly choir 

Back to the port to bring thy bark entire." 

And now the bark is sailing up the Thames, with bells 
ringing, bonfires blazing, and " bones and cleavers " clash- 
ing. So splendid a show suggests Lord Mayor's Day, but, 
in fact, it is only the crowd of Pope's friends come to 
welcome him on his successful achievement ; and a long 
catalogue follows, in which each is indicated by some ap- 
propriate epithet. The list includes some doubtful sym- 
pathizers, such as Gildon, who comes " hearing thou hast 
riches," and even Dennis, who, in fact, continued to growl 
out criticisms against the triumphant poet. Steele, too, 
and Tickell, — 



82 POPE. [chap. 

" Whose skifp (in partnership they say) 
Set forth for Greece but founder'd on the way," 

would not applaud very cordially. Addison, their com- 
mon hero, was beyond the reach of satire or praise. Par- 
nell, who had contributed a life of Homer, died in IVIS; 
and Rowe and Garth, sound Whigs, but friends and often 
boon companions of the little papist, had followed. Swift 
was breathing " Boeotian air" in his deanery, and St. John 
was " confined to foreign climates " for very sufficient rea- 
sons. Any such roll-call of friends must show melan- 
choly gaps, and sometimes the gaps are more significant 
than the names. Yet Pope could boast of a numerous 
body of men, many of them of high distinction, who were 
ready to give him a warm welcome. There were, indeed, 
few eminent persons of the time, either in the political or 
literary worlds, with whom this sensitive and restless little 
invalid did not come into contact, hostile or friendly, at 
some part of his career. His friendships were keen and 
his hostilities more than proportionally bitter. We see 
his fragile figure, glancing rapidly from one hospitable 
circle to another, but always standing a little apart; now 
paying court to some conspicuous wit, or philosopher, or 
statesman, or beanty ; now taking deadly oflience for some 
utterly inexplicable reason ; writhing with agony under 
clumsy blows which a robuster nature would have met 
with contemptuous laughter; racking his wits to contrive 
exquisite compliments, and suddenly exploding in sheer 
Billingsgate; making a mountain of every mole-hill in his 
pilgrimage; always preoccupied with his last literary proj- 
ect; and yet finding time for innumerable intrigues, for 
carrying out schemes of vengeance for Avounded vanity, 
and for introducing himself into every quarrel that was 
going on around him. In all his multifarious schemes 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 83 

and occupations he found it convenient to cover himself 
by elaborate mystifications, and was as anxious (it would 
seem) to deceive posterity as to impose upon contempora- 
ries ; and hence it is as difficult clearly to disentangle the 
twisted threads of his complex history as to give an in- 
telligible picture of the result of the investigation. The 
publication of the Iliad, however, marks a kind of central 
point in his history. Pope has reached independence, 
and become the acknowledged head of the literary world ; 
and it will be convenient here to take a brief survey of 
his position, before following out two or three different 
series of events, which can scarcely be given in chronolog- 
ical order. Pope, when he first came to town and follow- 
ed Wycherley about like a dog, had tried to assume the 
airs of a rake. The same tone is adopted in many of his 
earlier letters. At Binfield he became demure, correct, 
and respectful to the religious scruples of his parents. In 
his visits to London and Bath he is little better than one 
of the wicked. In a copy of verses (not too decent) writ- 
ten in 1715, as a " Farewell to London," he gives us to 
understand that he has been hearing the chimes at mid- 
night, and knows where the bona-robas dwell. He is 
forced to leave his jovial friends and his worrying pub- 
lishers "for Homer (damn him!) calls." He is, so he 

assures us, 

" Still idle, with a busy air 

Deep whimsies to contrive; 

The gayest valetudinaire, 

Most thiiikiug rake alive." 

And he takes a sad leave of London pleasures. 

" Luxurious lobster nights, farewell, 
For sober, studious days ! 
And Burlington's delicious meal 
For salads, tarts, and pease." 



84 POPE. [chap. 

Writing from Bath a little earlier, to Teresa and Martha 
Blount, he employs the same jaunty strain. " Every one," 
he says, " values Mr. Pope, but every one for a different 
reason. One for his adherence to the Catholic faith, an- 
other for his neglect of Popish superstition ; one for his 
good behaviour, another for his whimsicalities ; Mr. Tit- 
comb for his pretty atheistical jests ; Mr, Caryll for his 
moral and Christian sentences ; Mrs. Teresa for his reflec- 
tions on Mrs, Patty ; Mrs. Patty for his reflections on Mrs. 
Teresa." He is an " agreeable rattle ;" the accomplished 
rake, drinking with the wits, though above boozing with 
the squire, and capable of alleging his drunkenness as an 
excuse for writing very questionable letters to ladies. 

Pope was too sickly and too serious to indulge long in 
such youthful fopperies. He had no fund of high spirits 
to draw upon, and his playfulness was too near deadly ear- 
nest for the comedy of common life. He had too much 
intellect to be a mere fribble, and had not the strong ani- 
mal passions of the thorough debauchee. Age came upon 
him rapidly, and he had sown his wild oats, such as they 
were, while still a young man. Meanwhile his reputation 
and his circle of acquaintances were rapidly spreading, and 
in spite of all his disqualifications for the coarser forms of 
conviviality, he took the keenest possible interest in the 
life that went on around him, A satirist may not be a 
pleasant companion, but he must frequent society ; he 
must be on the watch for his natural prey ; he must de- 
scribe the gossip of the day, for it is the raw material 
from which he spins his finished fabric. Pope, as his 
writings show, was an eager recipient of all current ru- 
mours, whether they affected his aristocratic friends or the 
humble denizens of Grub - street. Fully to elucidate his 
poems, a commentator requires to have at his fingers' ends 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 85 

the whole chronique scandaleuse of the day. With such 
tastes, it was natural that, as the subscriptions for his 
Homer began to pour in, he should be anxious to move 
nearer the great social centre. London itself might be too 
exciting for his health and too destructive of literary lei- 
sure. Accordingly, in 1716, the little property at Binfield 
was sold, and the Pope family moved to Mawson's New 
Buildings, on the bank of the river at Chiswick, and " un- 
der the wing of my Lord Burlington." He seems to have 
been a little ashamed of the residence ; the name of it 
is certainly neither aristocratic nor poetical. Two years 
later, on the death of his father, he moved up the river to 
the villa at Twickenham, which has always been associated 
with his name, and was his home for the last twenty-five 
years of his life. There he had the advantage of being 
just on the boundary of the great world. He was within 
easy reach of Hampton Court, Richmond, and Kew ; places 
which, during Pope's residence, were frequently glorified 
by the presence of George H. and his heir and natural 
enemy, Frederick, Prince of Wales. Pope, indeed, did not 
enjoy the honour of any personal interview with royalty. 
George is said to have called him a very honest man after 
reading his D unclad ; but Pope's references to his Sover- 
eign were not complimentary. There was a report, refer- 
red to by Swift, that Pope had purposely avoided a visit 
from Queen Caroline. He was on very friendly terms 
with Mrs. Howard — afterwards Lady Suffolk — the pow- 
erless mistress, who was intimate with two of his chief 
friends, Bathurst and Peterborough, and who settled at 
Marble Villa, in Twickenham. Pope and Bathurst helped 
to lay out her grounds, and she stayed there to become a 
friendly neighbour of Horace Walpole, who, unluckily for 
lovers of gossip, did not become a Twickenhamite until 



86 POPE. [chap. 

three years after Pope's death. Pope was naturally more 
allied with the Prince of Wales, who occasionally visited 
him, and became intimate with the band of patriots and 
enthusiasts who saw in the heir to the throne the coming 
"patriot king." Bolingbroke, too, the great inspirer of 
the opposition, and Pope's most revered friend, was for 
ten years at Dawley, within an easy drive. London was 
easily accessible by road and by the river which bounded 
his lawn. His waterman appears to have been one of the' 
regular members of his household. There he had every 
opportunity for the indulgence of his favourite tastes. 
The villa was on one of the loveliest reaches of the Thames, 
not yet polluted by the encroachments of London. The 
house itself was destroyed in the beginning of this centu- 
ry ; and the garden (if we may trust Horace Walpole) had 
been previously spoilt. This garden, says Walpole, was a 
little bit of ground of five acres, enclosed by three lanes. 
"Pope had twisted and twirled and rhymed and harmo- 
nized this, till it appeared two or three sweet little lawns, 
opening and opening beyond one another, and the whole 
surrounded with impenetrable woods." These, it appears, 
were hacked and hewed into mere desolation by the next 
proprietor. Pope was, indeed, an ardent lover of the ris- 
ing art of landscape gardening; he was familiar with 
Bridgeman and Kent, the great authorities of the time, 
and his example and precepts helped to promote the de- 
velopment of a less formal style. His theories are partly 
indicated in the description of Timon's villa. 

" His gardens next your admiration call, 
On every side you look, behold the wall ! 
No pleasing intricacies intervene, 
No artful wildness to perplex the scene ; 
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother, 
And half the platform just reflects the other." 



IT.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 87 

Pope's taste, indeed, tolerated various old-fashioned ex- 
crescences which we profess to despise. He admired mock 
classical temples and obelisks erected judiciously at the 
ends of vistas. His most famous piece of handiwork, the 
grotto at Twickenham, still remains, and is, in fact, a short 
tunnel under the high road to connect his grounds with 
the lawn which slopes to the river. He describes, in a let- 
ter to one of his friends, his " temple wholly comprised of 
shells in the rustic manner," and his famous grotto so pro- 
vided with mirrors that when the doors are shut it be- 
comes a camera obscura, reflecting hills, river, and boats, 
and when lighted up glitters with rays reflected from bits 
of looking-glass in angular form. His friends pleased him 
by sending pieces of spar from the mines of Cornwall and 
Derbyshire, petrifactions, marble, coral, crystals, and hum- 
ming-birds' nests. It was, in fact, a gorgeous example of 
the kind of architecture with which the cit delighted to 
adorn his country box. The hobby, whether in good taste 
or not, gave Pope never-ceasing amusement ; and he wrote 
some characteristic verses in its praise. 

In his grotto, as he declares in another pkace, he could 
sit in peace with his friends, undisturbed by the distant 
din of the world. 

" There my retreat the best companions grace, 
Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place ; 
There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl 
The feast of reason and the flow of soul ; 
And he whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines 
Now forms my quincunx and now ranks my vines. 
Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain 
Almost as quickly as he conquer'd Spain." 

The grotto, one would fear, was better fitted for frogs than 
for philosophers capable of rheumatic twinges. But de- 
5 



88 POPE. [chap. 

ducting what we please from such utterances on the score 
of affectation, the picture of Pope amusing himself with 
his grotto and his plantations, directing old John Searle, 
his gardener, and conversing with the friends whom he 
compliments so gracefully, is, perhaps, the pleasantest in 
his history. He was far too restless and too keenly inter- 
ested in society and literature to resign himself permanent- 
ly to any such retreat. 

Pope's constitutional irritability kept him constantly on 
the wing. Though little interested in politics, he liked to 
be on the edge of any political commotion. He appeared 
in London on the death of Queen Caroline, in 1737 ; and 
Bathurst remarked that " he was as sure to be there in a 
bustle as a porpoise in a storm." " Our friend Pope," 
said Jervas not long before, " is off and on, here and there, 
everywhere and nowhere, a son ordinaire, and, therefore as 
well as we can hope for a carcase so crazy." The Twick- 
enham villa, though nominally dedicated to repose, became, 
of course, a centre of attraction for the interviewers of the 
day. The opening lines of the Prologue to the Satires 
give a vivacious description of the crowds of authors who 
rushed to " Twitnam," to obtain his patronage or counte- 
nance, in a day when editors were not the natural scape- 
goats of such aspirants. 

" What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide ? 
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide; 
By land, by water, they renew the charge ; 
They stop the chariot and they board the barge : 
No place is sacred, not the church is free, 
E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me." 

And even at an earlier period he occasionally retreated 
from the bustle to find time for his Homer. Lord Har- 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 89 

court, the Chancellor in the last years of Queen Anne, al- 
lowed him to take up his residence in his old house of 
Stanton Harcourt, in Oxfordshire. He inscribed on a 
pane of glass in an upper room, "In the year 1718 Al- 
exander Pope finished here the fifth volume of Homer." 
In his earlier days he was often rambling about on horse- 
back. A letter from Jervas gives the plan of one such 
jaunt (in 1715), with Arbuthnot and Disney for com- 
panions. Arbuthnot is to be commander-in-chief, and 
allows only a shirt and a cravat to be carried in each 
traveller's pocket. They are to make a moderate jour- 
ney each day, and stay at the houses of various friends, 
ending ultimately at Bath. Another letter of about the 
same date describes a ride to Oxford, in which Pope is 
overtaken by his publisher, Lintot, who lets him into vari- 
ous secrets of the trade, and proposes that Pope should 
turn an ode of Horace whilst sitting under the trees to 
rest. "Lord, if you pleased, what a clever miscellany 
might you make at leisure hours !" exclaims the man 
of business ; and though Pope laughed at the advice, we 
might fancy that he took it to heart. He always had 
bits of verse on the anvil, ready to be hammered and pol- 
ished at any moment. But even Pope could not be always 
writing, and the mere mention of these rambles suggests 
pleasant lounging through old-world country lanes of the 
quiet century. We think of the roadside life seen by 
Parson Adams or Humphry Clinker, and of which Mr. 
Borrow caught the last glimpse when dwelling in the 
tents of the Romany. In later days Pope had to put 
his " crazy carcase " into a carriage, and occasionally came 
in for less pleasant experiences. Whilst driving home one 
night from Dawley, in Bolingbroke's carriage and six, he 
was upset in a stream. He escaped drowning, though the 



90 POPE. [chap. 

water was "up to the knots of liis periwig," but he was 
so cut by the broken ghiss that he nearly lost the use of his 
right hand. On another occasion Spence was delighted by 
the sudden appearance of the poet at Oxford, " dreadful- 
ly fatigued ;" he had good-naturedly lent his own chariot 
to a lady who had been hurt in an upset, and had walked 
three miles to Oxford on a sultry day. 

A man of such brilliant wit, familiar with so many social 
circles, should have been a charming companion. It must, 
however, be admitted that the accounts which have come 
down to us do not confirm such preconceived impressions. 
Like his great rival, Addison, though for other reasons, he 
was generally disappointing in society. Pope, as may be 
guessed from Spence's reports, had a large fund of inter- 
esting literary talk, such as youthful aspirants to fame 
would be delighted to receive with reverence; he had 
the reputation for telling anecdotes skilfully, and we may 
suppose that when he felt at ease, with a respectful and 
safe companion, he could do himself justice. But he must 
have been very trying to his hosts, lie could seldom lay 
aside his self-consciousness sufficiently to write an easy let- 
ter; and the same fault probably spoilt his conversation. 
Swift complains of him as a silent and inattentive com- 
panion. He went to sleep at his own table, says Johnson, 
when the Prince of Wales was talking poetry to him — 
certainly a severe trial. He would, we may guess, be silent 
till he had something to say worthy of the great Pope, and 
would then doubt whether it was not wise to treasure it 
up for preservation in a couplet. His sister declared that 
she had never seen him laugh heartily ; and Spence, who 
records the saying, is surprised, because Pope was said to 
have been very lively in his youth ; but admits that in 
later years he never went beyond a " particular easy 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 91 

smile." A liearty laugh would have sounded strangely 
from the touchy, moody, intriguing little man, who could 
" hardly drink tea without a stratagem." Ilis sensitive- 
ness, indeed, appearing by his often weeping when he read 
moving passages ; but we can hardly imagine him as ever 
capable of genial self-abandonment. 

His unsocial habits, indeed, were a natural consequence 
of ill-health. He never seems to have been thoroughly 
well for many days together. He implied no more than 
the truth when he speaks of his Muse as helping him 
through that " long disease, his life." Writing to Bath- 
urst in 1728, he says that he does not expect to enjoy any 
health for four days together; and, not long after, Bath- 
urst remonstrates with him for his carelessness, asking 
him whether it is not enough to have the headache for 
four days in the week and be sick for the other three. It 
is no small proof of intellectual energy that he managed 
to do so much thorough work under such disadvantages, 
and his letters show less of the invalid's querulous spirit 
than we might well have pardoned. Johnson gives a 
painful account of his physical defects, on the authority 
of an old servant of Lord Oxford, who frequently saw 
him in his later years. He was so weak as to be unable 
to rise to dress himself without help. He was so sensi- 
tive to cold that he had to wear a kind of fur doublet 
under a coarse linen shirt ; one of his sides was con- 
tracted, and he could scarcely stand upright till he was 
laced into a boddice made of stiff canvas ; his legs were 
so slender that he had to wear three pairs of stockings, 
which he was unable to draw on and off without help. 
His seat had to be raised to bring him to a level with 
common tables. In one of his papers in the Guardian 
he describes himself apparently as Dick Distich : " a live- 



92 POrE. [chap. 

ly little creature, witli long legs and arms ; a spider' is 
no ill emblem of him ; he has been taken at a distance 
for a small windmill." His face, says Johnson, was " not 
displeasing," and the portraits are eminently characteris- 
tic. The thin, drawn features wear the expression of ha- 
bitual pain, but are brightened up by the vivid and pene- 
trating eye, which seems to be the characteristic poetical 
beauty. 

It was, after all, a gallant spirit which got so much work 
out of this crazy carcase, and kept it going, spite of all its 
feebleness, for fifty-six years. The servant whom Johnson 
quotes said that she was called from her bed four times in 
one night, " in the dreadful winter of Forty," to supply 
him with paper, lest he should lose a thought. His con- 
stitution was already breaking down, but the intellect was 
still striving to save every moment allowed to him. His 
friends laughed at his habit of scribbling upon odd bits of 
paper. " Paper -sparing" Pope is the epithet bestowed 
upon him by Swift, and a great part of the Iliad is writ- 
ten upon the backs of letters. The habit seems to have 
been regarded as illustrative of his economical habits ; but 
it was also natural to a man who was on the watch to turn 
every fragment of time to account. If anything was to 
be finished, he must snatch at the brief intervals allowed 
by his many infirmities. Naturally, he fell into many of 
the self-indulgent and troublesome ways of the valetudi- 
narian. He was constantly wanting colfee, which seems to 
have soothed his headaches ; and for this and his other 
wants he used to wear out the servants in his friends' 
houses by "frequent and frivolous errands." Yet he was 
apparently a kind master. His servants lived with him 

' The same comparison is made by Gibber in a rather unsavoury 
passage. 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 93 

till thoy became friends, and he took care to pay so well 
the unfortunate servant whose sleep was broken by his 
calls, that she said that she would want no wages in a 
family where she had to wait upon Mr. Pope. Another 
form of self-indulgence was more injurious to himself. 
He pampered his appetite with highly - seasoned dishes, 
and liked to receive delicacies from his friends. His 
death was imputed by some of his friends, says Johnson, 
to " a silver saucepan in which it was his delight to eat 
potted lampreys." He would always get up for dinner, 
in spite of headache, when told that this delicacy was pro- 
vided. Yet, as Johnson also observes, the excesses cannot 
have been very great, as they did not sooner cut short 
so fragile an existence. " Two bites and a sup more than 
your stint," says Swift, " will cost you more than others 
pay for a regular debauch." 

At home, indeed, he appears to have been generally ab- 
stemious. Probably the habits of his parents' little house- 
hold were very simple ; and Pope, like Swift, knew the 
value of independence well enough to be systematically eco- 
nomical. Swift, indeed, had a more generous heart, and 
a lordly indifference to making money by his writings, 
which Pope, who owed his fortune chiefly to his Homer, 
did not attempt to rival. Swift alludes, in his letters to an 
anecdote, which we may hope does not represent his habit- 
ual practice. Pope, it appears, was entertaining a couple 
of friends, and when four glasses had been consumed from 
a pint, retired, saying, "Gentlemen, I leave you to your 
wine." " I tell that story to everybody," says Swift, " in 
commendation of Mr. Pope's abstemiousness ;" but he tells 
it, one may guess, with something of a rueful countenance. 
At times, however, it seems that Pope could give a " splen- 
did dinner," and show no want of the " skill and elegance 



94 POPE. [chap. 

which such performances require." Pope, in fact, seems 
to have shown a combination of qualities which is not un- 
common, though sometimes called inconsistent. He val- 
ued money as a man values it who has been poor and feels 
it essential to his comfort to be fairly beyond the reach of 
want, and was accordingly pretty sharp at making a bar- 
gain with a publisher or in arranging terms with a collab- 
orator. But he could also be liberal on occasion. John- 
son says that his whole income amounted to about 800/. a 
year, out of which he.professed himself able to assign 100/. 
to charity ; and though the figures are doubtful, and all 
Pope's statements about his own proceedings liable to sus- 
picion, he appears to have been often generous in helping 
the distressed with money, as well as with advice or rec- 
ommendations to his powerful friends. Pope, by his in- 
firmities and his talents, belonged to the dependent class 
of mankind. He was in no sense capable of standing firm- 
ly upon his own legs. He had a longing, sometimes pa- 
thetic and sometimes humiliating, for the applause of his 
fellows and the "sympathy of friends. AVith feelings so 
morbidly sensitive, and with such a lamentable incapacity 
for straightforward openness in any relation of life, he was 
naturally a dangerous companion. He might be brooding 
ovxr some fancied injury or neglect, and meditating re- 
venge, when he appeared to be on good terms ; when really 
desiring to do a service to a friend, he might adopt some 
tortuous means for obtaining his ends, which would con- 
vert the service into an injury ; and, if he had once become 
alienated, the past friendship would be remembered by him 
as involving a kind of humiliation, and therefore supplying 
additional keenness to his resentment. And yet it is plain 
that throughout life he was always anxious to lean upon 
some stronger nature ; to have a sturdy supporter whom 



lY.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 95 

he was too apt to turn into an accomplice ; or at least to 
have some good-natured, easy-going companion, in whose 
society he might find repose for his tortured nerves. And 
therefore, though the story of his friendships is unfortu- 
nately intertwined with the story of bitter quarrels and in- 
defensible acts of treachery, it also reveals a touching de- 
sire for the kind of consolation which would be most val- 
uable to one so accessible to the pettiest stings of his ene- 
mies. He had many warm friends, moreover, who, by good 
fortune or the exercise of unusual prudence, never excited 
his wrath, and whom he repaid by genuine affection. 
Some of these friendships have become famous, and will 
be best noticed in connexion with passages in his future 
career. It will be sufficient if I here notice a few names, 
in order to show that a complete picture of Pope's life, if 
it could now be produced, would include many figures of 
which we only catch occasional glimpses. 

Pope, as I have said, though most closely connected with 
the Tories and Jacobites, disclaimed any close party con- 
nexion, and had some relations with the Whigs. Some 
courtesies even passed between him and the great Sir Rob- 
ert Walpole, whose interest in literature was a vanishing 
quantity, and whose bitterest enemies were Pope's greatest 
friends. Walpole, however, as we have seen, asked for 
preferment for Pope's old friend, and Pope repaid him 
with more than one compliment. Thus, in the Epilogue 
to the Satires, he says, — 

" Seen him I have, but in his happier hour 
Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power. 
Seen him, encumber'd with the venal tribe, 
Smile without art and win without a bribe." 

Another Whig statesman for whom Pope seems to have 
entertained an especially warm regard was James Craggs, 
5* 



96 POPE. [chap. 

Addison's successor as Secretary of State, who died whilst 
under suspicion of peculation in the South Sea business 
(IV2I). The Whig connexion might have been turned to 
account. Craggs, daring his brief tenure of office, offered 
Pope a pension of 300/. a year (from the secret service 
money), which Pope declined, whilst saying that, if in want 
of money, he would apply to Craggs as a friend. A ne- 
gotiation of the same kind took place with Halifax, who 
aimed at the glory of being the great literary patron. It 
seems that he was anxious to have the Homer dedicated 
to him, and Pope, being unwilling to gratify him, or, as 
Johnson says, being less eager for money than Halifax for 
praise, sent a cool answer, and the negotiation passed off. 
Pope afterwards revenged himself for this offence by his 
bitter satire on Bufo in the Prologue to his Safwes, though 
he had not the courage to admit its obvious application. 

Pope deserves the credit of preserving his independence. 
He would not stoop low enough to take a pension at the 
price virtually demanded by the party in power. He was 
not, however, inaccessible to aristocratic blandishments, 
and was proud to be the valued and petted guest in many 
great houses. Through Swift he had become acquainted 
with Oxford, the colleague of Bolingbroke, and was a fre- 
quent and intimate guest of the second Earl, from whose 
servant Johnson derived the curious information as to his 
habits. Harcourt, Oxford's Chancellor, lent him a house 
whilst translating Homer. Sheffield, the Duke of Buck- 
ingham, had been an early patron, and after the duke's 
death. Pope, at the request of his eccentric duchess, the il- 
legitimate daughter of James II., edited some of his works, 
and got into trouble for some Jacobite phrases contained 
in them. His most familiar friend among the opposition 
magnates was Lord Bathurst, a man of uncommon vivacity 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 91 

and good-humour. He was born four years before Pope, 
and died more than thu'ty years later, at the age of ninety- 
one. One of the finest passages in Burke's American 
speeches turns upon the vast changes which had taken 
place during Bathurst's lifetime. He lived to see his son 
Chancellor. Two years before his death the son left the 
father's dinner-table with some remark upon the advantage 
of regular habits. " Now the old gentleman's gone," said 
the lively youth of eighty-nine to the remaining guests, 
"let's crack the other bottle." Bathurst delighted in 
planting, and Pope in giving him advice, and in discuss- 
ing the opening of vistas and erection of temples, and 
the poet was apt to be vexed when his advice was not 
taken. 

Another friend, even more restless and comet-like in his 
appearances, was the famous Peterborough, the man who 
had seen more kings and postilions than any one in Eu- 
rope ; of whom Walsh injudiciously remarked that he had 
too much wit to be entrusted with the command of a-n 
army ; and whose victories, soon after the unlucky remark 
had been made, were so brilliant as to resemble strategical 
epigrams. Pope seems to have been dazzled by the amaz- 
ing vivacity of the man, and has left a curious description 
of his last days. Pope found him on the eve of the voy- 
age in which he died, sick of an agonizing disease, crying 
out for pain at night, fainting away twice in the morning, 
lying like a dead man for a time, and in the intervals of 
pain giving a dinner to ten people, laughing, talking, de^ 
claiming against the corruption of the times, giving direc^ 
tions to his workmen, and insisting upon going to sea in a 
yacht without preparations for landing anywhere in par- 
ticular. Pope seems to have been specially attracted by 
such men, with intellects as restless as his own, but with 



98 POPE. [chap. 

infinitely more vitality to stand the consequent wear and 
tear. 

We should be better pleased if we could restore a vivid 
image of the inner circle upon which his happiness most 
intimately depended. In one relation of life Pope's con- 
duct was not only blameless, but thoroughly loveable. He 
was, it is plain, the best of sons. Even here, it is true, he 
is a little too consciously virtuous. Yet when he speaks 
of his father and mother there are tears in his voice, and 
it is impossible not to recognize genuine warmth of heart. 

" Me let the tender office long engage 
To rock the cradle of reposing age, 
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, 
Make languor smile, and soothe the bed of death, 
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye. 
And keep awhile one parent from the sky!"' 

Such verses are a spring in the desert, a gush of the 
true feeling, which contrasts with the strained and facti- 
tious sentiment in his earlier rhetoric, and almost forces us 
to love the writer. Could Pope have preserved that high- 
er mood, he would have held our affections as he often 
delio'hts our intellect. 

Unluckily we can catch but few glimpses of Pope's 
family life; of the old mother and father and the affec- 
tionate nurse, who lived with him till 1721, and died dur- 
ing a dangerous illness of his mother's. The father, of 
whom we hear little after his early criticism of the son's 
bad "rhymes," died in 1717 ; and a brief note to Martha 
Blount gives Pope's feelings as fully as many pages : " My 

' It is curious to compare these verses with the original copy con- 
tained in a letter to Aaron Hill. The comparison shows how skilful- 
ly Pope polished his most successful passages. 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 99 

poor father died last night. Believe, since I don't forget 
you this moment, I never shall." The mother survived 
till 1733, tenderly watched by Pope, who would never be 
long absent from her, and whose references to her are uni- 
formly tender and beautiful. One or two of her letters 
are preserved. " My Deare, — A letter from your sister 
just now is come and gone, Mr. Mennock and Charls Rack- 
itt, to take his leve of us ; but being nothing in it, doe 
not send it. . . . Your sister is very well, but your broth- 
er is not. There's Mr. Blunt of Maypell Durom is dead, 
the same day that Mr. Inglefield died. My servis to Mrs. 
Blounts, and all that ask of me. I hope to here from you, 
and that you are well, which is my dalye prayers ; this 
with my blessing." The old lady had peculiar views of 
orthography ; and Pope, it is said, gave her the pleasure 
of copying out some of his Homer, though the necessary 
corrections gave him and the printers more trouble than 
would be saved by such an amanuensis. Three days after 
her death he wrote to Richardson, the painter. " I thank 
God," he says, " her death was as easy as her life was in- 
nocent ; and as it cost her not a groan, nor even a sigh, 
there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of 
tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even envia- 
ble to behold it. It would afford the finest image of a 
saint expired that ever painter drew, and it would be the 
greatest obligation which ever that obliging art could ever 
bestow upon a friend, if you would come and sketch it 
for me. I am sure if there be no very prevalent obstacle, 
you will leave any common business to do this, and I shall 
hope to see you this evening as late as you will, or to-mor- 
row morning as early, before this winter flower is faded." 
Swift's comment, on hearing the news, gives the only con- 
solation which Pope could have felt, "She died in ex- 



100 POPE. [chap. 

treme old age," lie writes, " without pain, under tlie care 
of the most dutiful son I have ever known or heard of, 
which is a felicity not happening to one in a million." 
And with her death, its most touching and ennobling in- 
fluence faded from Pope's life. There is no particular 
merit in loving a mother, but few biographies give a more 
striking proof that the loving discharge of a common duty 
may give a charm to a whole character. It is melancholy 
to add that we often have to appeal to this part of his 
story, to assure ourselves that Pope was really deserving 
of some affection. 

The part of Pope's history which naturally follows 
brings us again to the region of unsolved mysteries. The 
one prescription which a spiritual physician would have 
suggested in Pope's case would have been the love of a 
good and sensible woman. A nature so capable of tender 
feeling and so essentially dependent upon others, might 
have been at once soothed and supported by a happy do- 
mestic life ; though it must be admitted that it would 
have required no common qualifications in a wife to calm 
so irritable and jealous a spirit. Pope was unfortunate in 
his surroundings. The bachelor society of that day, not 
only the society of the Wycherleys and Cromwells, but the 
more virtuous society of Addison and his friends, was cer- 
tainly not remarkable for any exalted tone about women. 
Bolingbroke, Peterborough, and Bathnrst, Pope's most ad- 
mired friends, were all more or less flagrantly licentious ; 
and Swift's mysterious story shows that if he could love a 
woman, his love might be as dangerous as hatred. In such 
a school, Pope, eminently malleable to the opinions of his 
companions, was not likely to acquire a high standard of 
sentiment. His personal defects were equally against him. 
Ilis frame was not adapted for the robust gallantry of the 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 101 

time. He wanted a nurse rather than a wife ; and if his 
infirmities might excite pity, pity is akin to contempt as 
well as to love. The poor little invalid, brutally abused 
for his deformity by such men as Dennis and his friends, 
was stung beyond all self-control by their coarse laughter, 
and by the consciousness that it only echoed, in a more 
brutal shape, the judgment of the fine ladies of the time. 
His language about women, sometimes expressing coarse 
contempt and sometimes rising to ferocity, is the reaction 
of his morbid sensibility under such real and imagined 
scorn. 

Such feelings must be remembered in speaking briefly 
of two love alfairs, if they are such, which profoundly af- 
fected his happiness. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is 
amongst the most conspicuous figures of the time. She 
had been made a toast at the Kitcat Club at the age of 
eight, and she translated Epictetus (from the Latin) before 
she was twenty. She wrote verses, some of them amaz- 
ingly coarse, though decidedly clever, and had married 
Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu in defiance of her father's 
will, though even in this, her most romantic proceeding, 
there are curious indications of a respect for prudential 
considerations. Her husband was a friend of Addison's, 
and a Whig ; and she accompanied him on an embassy to 
Constantinople in 1716-17, where she wrote the excel- 
lent letters published after her death, and whence she im- 
ported the practice of inoculation, in spite of much oppo- 
sition. A distinguished leader of society, she was also a 
woman of shrewd intellect and masculine character. In 
1 739 she left her husband, though no quarrel preceded or 
followed the separation, and settled for many years in Ita- 
ly. Her letters are characteristic of the keen woman of 
the world, with an underlying vein of nobler feeling, per- 



102 rOPE. [chap. 

verted by barsli experience into a prevailing cynicism. 
Pope had made her acquaintance before she left England. 
He wrote poems to her and corrected her verses till she 
cruelly refused his services, on the painfully plausible 
ground that he would claim all the good for himself and 
leave all the bad for her. They corresponded during her 
first absence abroad. The common sense is all on the 
lady's side, whilst Pope puts on his most elaborate man- 
ners and addresses her in the strained compliments of old- 
fashioned gallantry. He acts the lover, though it is obvi- 
ously mere acting, and his language is stained by indeli- 
cacies, which could scarcely offend Lady Mary, if we may 
judge her by her own poetical attempts. The most char- 
acteristic of Pope's letters related to an incident at Stanton 
Harcourt. Two rustic lovei's were surprised by a thunder- 
storm in a field near the house ; they were struck by light- 
ning, and found lying dead in each other's arms. Here 
was an admirable chance for Pope, who was staying in the 
house with his friend Gay. He wrote off a beautiful let- 
ter to Lady Mary,* descriptive of the event — a true prose 
pastoral in the Strephon and Chloe style. He got Lord 
Harcourt to erect a monument over the common grave of 
the lovers, and composed a couple of epitaphs, which he 
submitted to Lady Mary's opinion. She replied by a 
cruel dose of common sense, and a doggerel epitaph, which 
turned his fine phrases into merciless ridicule. If the 
lovers had been spared, she suggests, the first year might 

' Pope, after his quarrel, wanted to sink his previous intimacy with 
Lady Mary, and printed this letter as addressed by Gay to Fortescue, 
adding one to the innumerable mystifications of his correspondence. 
Mr. Moy Thomas doubts also whether Lady Mary's answer was really 
sent at the assigned date. The contrast of sentiment is equally char- 
acteristic in any case. 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 103 

probably have seen a beaten wife and a deceived husband, 
cursing their marriage chain. 

" Now they are happy in their doom, 
For Pope has writ upon their tomb." 

On Lady Mary's return the intimacy was continued. 
She took a house at Twickenham. He got Kneller to 
paint her portrait, and wrote letters expressive of humble 
adoration. But the tone which did well enough when the 
pair were separated by the whole breadth of Europe, was 
less suitable when they were in the same parish. After a 
time the intimacy faded and clianged into mutual antipa- 
thy. The specific cause of the quarrel, if cause there was, 
has not been clearly revealed. One account, said to come 
from Lady Mary, is at least not intrinsically' improbable. 
According to this story, the unfortunate poet forgot for a 
moment that he was a contemptible cripple, and forgot also 
the existence of Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu, and a pas- 
sionate declaration of love drew from the lady an " immod- 
erate fit of laughter." Ever afterwards, it is added, he was 
her implacable enemy. Doubtless, if the story be true, 
Lady Mary acted like a sensible woman of the world, and 
Pope was silly as well as immoraL And yet one cannot 
refuse some pity to the nnfortunate wretch, thus roughly 
jerked back into the consciousness that a fine lady might 
make a pretty plaything of him, but could not seriously 
regard him with anything but scorn. Whatever the pre- 
cise facts, a breach of some sort might have been antici- 

* Mr. Moy Thomas, in his edition of Lady Mary's letters, considers 
this story to be merely an oclio of old scandal, and makes a different 
conjecture as to the immediate cause of quarrel. His conjecture 
seems very improbable to me ; but the declaration story is clearly of 
very doubtful authenticity. 



104 POPE. [chap. 

pated. A game of gallantry in which the natural parts 
are inverted, and the gentleman acts the sentimentalist to 
the lady's performance of the shrewd cynic, is likely to have 
awkward results. Pope brooded over his resentment, and 
years afterwards took a revenge only too characteristic. 
The first of his imitations of Horace appeared in 1733. 
It contained a couplet, too gross for quotation, making the 
most outrageous imputation upon the character of " Sap- 
pho." Now, the accusation itself had no relation whatever 
either to facts or even (as I suppose) to any existing scan- 
dal. It was simply throwing filth at random. Thus, 
when Lady Mary took it to herself, and applied to Pope 
through Peterborough for an explanation, Pope could 
make a defence verbally impregnable. There was no rea- 
son why Lady Mary should fancy that such a cap fitted ; 
and it was far more appropriate, as he added, to other 
women notorious for immorality as well as authorship. In 
fact, however, there can be no doubt that Pope intended 
his abuse to reach its mark. Sappho was an obvious name 
for the most famous of poetic ladies. Pope himself, in 
one of his last letters to her, says that fragments of her 
writing would please him like fragments of Sappho's; 
and their mediator, Peterborough, writes of her under the 
same name in some complimentary and once well-known 
verses to Mrs. Howard. Pope had himself alluded to her 
as Sappho in some verses addressed (about 1722) to an- 
other lady, Judith Cowper, afterwards Mrs. Madan, who 
was for a time the object of some of his artificial gal- 
lantry. The only thing that can be said is that his 
abuse was a sheer piece of Billingsgate, too devoid of 
plausibility to be more than an expression of virulent 
hatred. He was like a dirty boy who throws mud fi'om 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 105 

an ambush, and declares that he did not see the victim be- 
spattered.' 

A bitter and humiliating quarrel followed. Lord Her- 
vey, who had been described as " Lord Fanny," in the 
same satire, joined with his friend, Lady Mary, in writing 
lampoons upon Pope. The best known was a copy of 
verses, chiefly, if not exclusively, by Lady Mary, in which 
Pope is brutally taunted with the personal deformities 
of his " wretched little carcase," which, it seems, are the 
only cause of his being " unwhipt, unblanketed, unkicked." 
One verse seems to have stung him more deeply, wliicli 
says that his "crabbed numbers" are 

" Hard as his heart and as his birth obscure." 

To this and other assaults Pope replied by a long letter, 
suppressed, however, for the time, which, as Johnson says, 
exhibits to later readers " nothing but tedious malignity," 
and is, in fact, a careful raking together of everything 
likely to give pain to his victim. It was not published 
till 1*751, when both Pope and Hervey were dead. In 
his later writings he made references to Sappho, which 
fixed the name upon her, and amongst other pleasant in- 

' Another couplet in the second book of the Dunciad about " hap- 
less Monsieur " and " Lady Maries," was also applied at the time to 
Lady M. W. Montagu : and Pope in a later note affects to deny, thus 
really pointing the allusion. But the obvious meaning of the whole 
passage is that " duchesses and Lady Maries " might be personated 
by abandoned women, which would certainly be unpleasant for them, 
but does not imply any imputation upon their character. If Lady 
Mary was really the author of a " Pop upon Pope " — a story of 
Pope's supposed whipping in the vein of his own attack upon Den- 
nis, she already considered him as the author of some scandal. The 
line in the Dunciad was taken to allude to a story about a M. Remond 
which has been fully cleared up. 



106 POPE. [chap. 

sinuations, speaks of a weakness which she shared vvitli 
Dr. Johnson — an inadequate appreciation of clean linen. 
More malignant accusations are implied both in his ac- 
knowledged and anonymous writings. The most fero- 
cious of all his assaults, however, is the character of 
Sporus, that is. Lord Hervey, in the epistle to Arbuthnot, 
where he seems to be actually screaming with malignant 
fury. He returns the taunts as to effeminacy, and calls 
his adversary a " mere white curd of asses' milk," — an in- 
nocent drink, which he was himself in the habit of con- 
suming. 

We turn gladly from these miserable hostilities, dis- 
graceful to all concerned. Were any e.xcuse available for 
Pope, it would be in the brutality of taunts, coming not 
only from rough dwellers in Grub-street, but from the 
most polished representatives of the highest classes, upon 
personal defects, which the most ungenerous assailant 
might surely have spared. But it must also be granted 
that Pope was neither the last to give provocation, nor at 
all inclined to refrain from the use of poisoned weapons. 

The other connexion of which I have spoken has also 
its mystery — like everything else in Pope's career. Pope 
had been early acquainted with Teresa and Martha Blount. 
Teresa was born in the same year as Pope, and Martha 
two years later.' They were daughters of Lister Blount, 
of Mapledurham ; and after his death, in 1710, and the 
marriage of their only brother, in 1711, they lived with 

* The statements as to the date of the acquairtance are contra- 
dictory. Martha told Spence that she first knew Pope as a " very 
little girl," but added that it was after the publication of the Essay 
on Criticism, when she was twenty-one ; and at another time, that 
it was after he had begun the Iliad, which was later than part of the 
published correspondence. 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 107 

their mother in London, and passed much of the summer 
near Twickenham. They seem to have been lively young 
women who had been educated at Paris. Teresa was the 
most religious, and the greatest lover of London society. 
I have already quoted a passage or two from the early 
letters addressed to the two sisters. It has also to be said 
that he was guilty of writing to them stuff which it is in- 
conceivable that any decent man should have communi- 
cated to a modest woman. They do not seem to have 
taken offence. He professes himself the slave of both al- 
ternately or together. " Even from my infancy," he says 
(in 1714), " I have been in love with one or other of you 
week by week, and my journey to Bath fell out in the 
376th week of the reign of my sovereign lady Sylvia. 
At the present writing hereof, it is the 389th week of the 
reign of your most serene majesty, in whose service I was 
listed some weeks before I beheld your sister." lie had 
suggested to Lady Mary that the concluding lines of Eloi- 
sa contained a delicate compliment to her; and he char- 
acteristically made a similar insinuation to Martha Blount 
about the same passage. Pope was decidedly an econo- 
mist even of his compliments. Some later letters are in 
less artificial language, and there is a really touching and 
natural letter to Teresa in regard to an illness of her sis- 
ter's. After a time, we find that some difficulty has arisen. 
lie feels that his presence gives pain ; Avhen he comes he 
either makes her (apparently Teresa) uneasy, or he sees 
her unkind, Teresa, it would seem, is jealous, and disap- 
proves of his attentions to Martha. In the midst of this 
we find that in 1717 Pope settled an annuity upon Teresa 
of 4:01. a year for six years, on condition of her not being 
married during that time. The fact has suggested vari- 
ous speculations, but was, perhaps, only a part of some 



108 POPE. [chap. 

family arrangement, made convenient by tlie diminished 
fortunes of the ladies. Whatever the history, Pope grad- 
ually became attached to Martha, and simultaneously came 
to regard Teresa with antipathy. Martha, in fact, became 
by degrees almost a member of his household. His cor- 
respondents take for granted that she is his regular com- 
panion. He writes of her to Gay, in 1730, as "a friend 
— a woman friend, God help me ! — with whom I have 
spent three or four hours a day these fifteen years." In 
his last years, when he was most dependent upon kind- 
ness, he seems to have expected that she should be in- 
vited to any house which he was himself to visit. Such a 
close connexion naturally caused some scandaL In 1725 
he defends himself against " villanous lying tales " of 
this kind to his old friend Caryll, with whom the Blounts 
w'ere connected. At the same time he is making bitter 
complaints of Teresa. He accused her afterwards (1729) 
of having an intrigue with a married man, of " strik- 
ing, pinching, and abusing her mother to the utmost 
shamefulness." The mother, he thinks, is too meek to 
resent this tyranny, and Martha, as it appears, refuses to 
believe the reports against her sister. Pope audaciously 
suggests that it would be a good thing if the mother 
could be induced to retire to a convent, and is anxious to 
persuade Martha to leave so painful a home. The same 
complaints reappear in many letters, but the position re- 
mained unaltered. It is impossible to say with any cer- 
tainty what may have been the real facts. Pope's mania 
for suspicion deprives his suggestions of the slightest 
value. The only inference to be drawn is, that he drew 
closer to Martha Blount as years went by, and was anx- 
ious that she should become independent of her fami- 
ly. This naturally led to mutual dislike and suspicion, 



IV.] POPE AT TWICKENHAM. 109 

but nobody can now say whether Teresa pinched her 
mother, nor what would have been her account of Martha's 
relations to Pope. 

Johnson repeats a story that Martha neglected Pope 
" with shameful unkindness," in his later years. It is 
clearly exaggerated or quite unfounded. At any rate, the 
poor sickly man, in his premature and childless old age, 
looked up to her with fond affection, and left to her nearly 
the whole, of his fortune. His biographers have indulged 
in discussions — surely superfluous — as to the morality of 
the connexion. There is no question of seduction, or of 
tampering with the affections of an innocent woman. 
Pope was but too clearly disqualified from acting the part 
of Lothario. There was not in his case any Vanessa to 
give a tragic turn to the connexion, which otherwise re- 
sembled Swift's connexion with Stella. Miss Blount, from 
all that appears, was quite capable of taking care of her- 
self, and, had she wished for marriage, need only have in- 
timated her commands to her lover. It is probable 
enough that the relations between them led to very un- 
pleasant scenes in her family ; but she did not suffer oth- 
erwise in accepting Pope's attentions. The probability 
seems to be that the friendship had become imperceptibly 
closer, and that what began as an idle affectation of gal- 
lantry was slowly changed into a devoted attachment, but 
not until Pope's health was so broken that marriage would 
then, if not always, have appeared to be a mockery. 

Poets have a bad reputation as husbands. Strong pas- 
sions and keen sensibilities may easily disqualify a man 
for domestic tranquillity, and prompt a revolt against rules 
essential to social welfare. Pope, like other poets from 
Shakspeare to Shelley, was unfortunate in his love affairs ; 
but his ill-fortune took a characteristic shape. He was 



110 POPE. [chap. ir. 

not carried away, like Byron and Burns, by overpowering 
passions. Rather the emotional power which lay in his 
nature was prevented from displaying itself by his physical 
infirmities, and his strange trickiness and morbid irritabil- 
ity. A man who could not make tea without a stratagem, 
could hardly be a downright lover. We may imagine 
that he would at once make advances and retract them ; 
that he would be intolerably touchy and suspicious ; that 
every coolness would be interpreted as a deliberate insult, 
and that the slightest hint would be enough to set his jeal- 
ousy in a flame. A woman would feel that, whatever his 
genius and his genuine kindliness, one thing was impossi- 
ble with him — that is, a real confidence in his sincerity ; 
and therefore, on the whole, it may, perhaps, be reckoned 
as a piece of good fortune for the most wayward and ex- 
citable of sane mankind that, if he never fully gained the 
most essential condition of all human happiness, he yet 
formed a deep and lasting attachment to a woman who, 
more or less, returned his feeling. In a life so full of bit- 
terness, so harassed by physical pain, one is glad to think, 
even whilst admitting that the suffering was in great part 
foolish self-torture, and in part inflicted as a retribution 
for injuries to others, that some glow of feminine kindli- 
ness might enlighten the dreary stages of his progress 
through life. The years left to him after the death of his 
mother were few and evil, and it would be hard to grudge 
him such consolation as he could receive from the glances 
of Patty Blount's blue eyes — the eyes which, on Walpole's 
testimony, were the last remains of her beauty. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 

In the Dunciad, published soon after the Odyssey, Pope 
laments ten years spent as a commentator and translator. 
He was not without compensation. The drudgery — for 
the latter part of his task must have been felt as drudgery 
— ouce over, he found himself in a thoroughly independent 
position, still on the right side of forty, and able to devote 
his talents to any task which might please him. The task 
which he actually chose was not calculated to promote his 
happiness. We must look back to an earlier period to ex- 
plain its history. During the last years of Queen Anne, 
Pope had belonged to a " little senate " in which Swift 
was the chief figure. Though Swift did not exercise 
either so gentle or so imperial a sway as Addison, the 
cohesion between the more independent members of this 
rival clique was strong and lasting. They amused them- 
selves by projecting the Scriblerus Club, a body which 
never had, it would seem, any definite organization, but 
was held to exist for the prosecution of a design never 
fully executed. Martinus Scriblerus was the name of an 
imaginary pedant — a precursor and relative of Dr. Dryas- 
dust — whose memoirs and works were to form a satire 
upon stupidity in the guise of learning. The various 
members of the club were to share in the compilation ; 
and if such joint-stock undertakings were practicable in 
6 



112 POPE. [chap, 

literature, it would be difficult to collect a more brilliant 
set of contributors. After Swift — the terrible humourist 
of whom we can hardly think without a mixture of hor- 
ror and compassion — the chief members were Atterbury, 
Arbuthnot, Gay, Parnell, and Pope himself. Parnell, an 
amiable man, died in iVl 7, leaving works which were ed- 
ited by Pope in 1722. Atterbury, a potential Wolsey or 
Laud born in an uncongenial period, was a man of fine lit- 
erary taste — a warm admirer of Milton (though he did ex- 
hort Pope to put Samso7i Agonistes into civilised costume 
— one of the most unlucky suggestions ever made by mor- 
tal man), a judicious critic of Pope himself, and one who 
had already given proofs of his capacity in literary warfare 
by his share in the famous controversy with Bentle3^ 
Though no one now doubts the measureless superiority of 
Bentley, the clique of Swift and Pope still cherished the 
belief that the wit of Atterbury and his allies had triumph- 
ed over the ponderous learning of the pedant. Arbuthnot, 
whom Swift had introduced to Pope as a man who could 
do everything but walk, was an amiable and accomplished 
physician. He was a strong Tory and High-Churchman, 
and retired for a time to France upon the death of Anne 
and the overthrow of his party. He returned, however, to 
England, resumed his practice, and won Pope's warmest 
gratitude by his skill and care. He was a man of learn- 
ing, and had employed it in an attack upon Woodward's 
geological speculations, as already savouring of heterodoxy. 
Pie possessed also a vein of genuine humour, resembling 
that of Swift, though it has rather lost its savour, perhaps, 
because it was not salted by the Dean's misanthropic bit- 
terness. If his good humour weakened his wit, it gained 
him the affections of his friends, and was never soured by 
the sufferings of his later years. Finally, John Gay, though 



v.] THE WAR AVITH THE DUNCES. 113 

fat, lazy, and wanting in manliness of spirit, bad an illim- 
itable flow of good-tempered banter ; and if he could not 
supply the learning of Arbuthnot, he could give what was 
more valuable, touches of fresh natural simplicity, which 
still explain the liking of his friends. Gay, as Johnson 
says, was the general favourite of the wits, though a play- 
fellow rather than a partner, and treated with more fond- 
ness than respect. Pope seems to have loved him better 
than any one, and was probably soothed by his easy-going, 
unsuspicious temper. They were of the same age ; and 
Gay, who had been apprenticed to a linen-draper, managed 
to gain notice by his poetical talents, and was taken up by 
various great people. Pope said of him that he wanted 
independence of spirit, which is indeed obvious enough. 
He would have been a fitting inmate of Thomson's Castle 
of Indolence. He was one of those people who consider 
that Providence is bound to put food into their mouths 
without giving them any trouble ; and, as sometimes hap- 
pens, his draft upon the general system of things was hon- 
oured. He was made comfortable by various patrons ; the 
Duchess of Queensberry petted him in his later years, and 
the duke kept his money for him. His friends chose to 
make a grievance of the neglect of Government to add to 
his comfort by a good place ; they encouraged him to re- 
fuse the only place offered as not sufficiently dignified ; 
and he even became something of a martyr when his Polly, 
a sequel to the Beggars' Opera, was prohibited by the Lord 
Chamberlain, and a good subscription made him ample 
amends. Pope has immortalized the complaint by lament- 
ing the fate of " neglected genius " in the Epistle to Ar- 
buthnot, and declaring that the " sole return " of all Gay's 
"blameless life" was 

" My verse and Queensberry weeping o'er thy urn." 



114 POPE. [chap. 

Pope's alliance with Gay had various results. Gay con- 
tinued the war with Ambrose Philips by writing burlesque 
pastorals, of which Johnson truly says that they show *' the 
effect of reality and truth, even when the intention was to 
show them grovelling and degraded." They may still be 
glanced at with pleasure. Soon after the publication of 
the mock pastorals, the two friends, in company with Ar- 
buthnot, had made an adventure more in the spirit of the 
Scriblerus Club. A farce called Three Hours after Mar- 
riage was produced and damned in 1717. It was intend- 
ed (amongst other things) to satirize Pope's old enemy 
Dennis, called " Sir Tremendous," as an embodiment of 
pedantic criticism, and Arbuthnot's old antagonist Wood- 
ward. A taste for fossils, mummies or antiquities was at 
that time regarded as a fair butt for unsparing ridicule ; 
but the three great wits managed their assault so clumsily 
as to become ridiculous themselves ; and Pope, as we shall 
presently see, smarted as usual under failure. 

After Swift's retirement to Ireland, and during Pope's 
absorption in Homer, the Scriblerus Club languished. 
Some fragments, however, of the great design were exe- 
cuted by the four chief members, and the dormant project 
was revived, after Pope had finished his Homer, on occasion 
of the last two visits of Swift to England. He passed six 
months in England, from March to August, 1726, and had 
brought with him the MS. of Gulliver's Travels, the great- 
est satire produced by the Scriblerians. He passed a great 
part of his time at Twickenham, and in rambling with 
Pope or Gay about the country. Those who do not know 
how often the encounter of brilliant wits tends to neu- 
tralize rather than stimulate their activity, may wish to 
have been present at a dinner which took place at Twick- 
enham on July 6, 1726, when the party was made up of 



T.] THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 115 

Pope, the most finished poet of the day ; Swift, the deep- 
est humourist ; Bolingbroke, the most brilliant politician ; 
Congreve, the wittiest writer of comedy ; and Gay, the au- 
thor of the most successful burlesque. The envious may 
console themselves by thinking that Pope very likely went 
to sleep, that Swift was deaf and overbearing, that Con- 
greve and Bolingbroke were painfully witty, and Gay 
frightened into silence. When, in 1727, Swift again vis- 
ited England, and stayed at Twickenham, the clouds were 
gathering. The scene is set before us in some of Swift's 
verses : — 

"Pope has the talent well to speak, 

But not to reach the ear ; 
His loudest voice is low and weak, 

The dean too deaf to hear. 

" Awhile they on each other look, 
Then different studies choose; 
The dean sits plodding o'er a book, 
Pope walks and courts the muse." 

" Two sick friends," says Swift in a letter written after 
his return to Ireland, " never did well together." It is 
plain that their infirmities had been mutually trying, and 
on the last day of August Swift suddenly withdrew from 
Twickenham, in spite of Pope's entreaties. He had heard 
of the last illness of Stella, which was finally to crush his 
happiness. Unable to endure the company of friends, he 
went to London ill very bad health, and thence, after a 
short stay, to Ireland, leaving behind him a letter which, 
says Pope, " affected me so much that it made me like a 
girl." It was a gloomy parting, and the last. The stern 
Dean retired to die " like a poisoned rat in a hole," after 
long years of bitterness, and finally of slow intellectual de- 
cay. He always retained perfect confidence in his friend's 



116 POPE. [chap. 

affection. Poor Pope, as he says in the verses on his own 

death, — 

" Will grieve a montli, and Gay 
A week, and Arbuthnot a day ;" 

and they were the only friends to whom he attributes sin- 
cere sorrow. 

Meanwhile two volumes of Miscellanies, the joint work 
of the four wits, appeared in June, 1727 ; and a third in 
March, 1728. A fourth, hastily got up, was published in 
1732. They do not appear to have been successful. The 
copyright of the three volumes was sold for 225^., of which 
Arbuthnot and Gay received each 50^., whilst the remain- 
der was shared between Pope and Swift ; and Swift seems 
to have given his part, according to his custom, to the wid- 
ow of a respectable Dublin bookseller. Pope's correspond- 
ence with the publisher shows that he was entrusted with 
the financial details, and arranged them with the sharpness 
of a practised man of business. The whole collection was 
made up in great part of old scraps, and savoured of book- 
making, though Pope speaks complacently of the joint 
volumes, in which he says to Swift, " We look like friends, 
side by side, serious and merry by turns, conversing inter- 
changeably, and walking down, hand in hand, to posterity." 
Of the various fragments contributed by Pope, there is 
only one which need be mentioned here — the treatise on 
Bathos in the third volume, in which he was helped by 
Arbuthnot. He told Swift privately that he had " entire- 
ly methodized and in a manner written it all," though he 
afterwards chose to denounce the very same statement as a 
lie when the treatise brought him into trouble. It is the 
most amusing of his prose writings, consisting essentially of 
a collection of absurdities from various authors, with some 
apparently invented for the occasion, such as the familiar 



v.] THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 117 

" Ye gods, annihilate but space and time, 
And make two lovers happy !" 

and ending with the ingenious receipt to make an epic 
poem. Most of the passages ridiculed — and, it must be 
said, very deservedly — were selected from some of the va- 
rious writers to whom, for one reason or another, he owed 
a grudge. Ambrose Philips and Dennis, his old enemies, 
and Theobald, who had criticised his edition of Shak- 
speare, supply several illustrations. Blackmore had spoken 
very strongly of the immorality of the wits in some prose 
essays ; Swift's Tale of a Tub, and a parody of the first 
psalm, anonymously circulated, but known to. be Pope's, 
had been severely condemned ; and Pope took a cutting 
revenge by plentiful citations from Blackmore's most ludi- 
crous bombast ; and even Broome, his colleague in Homer, 
came in for a passing stroke, for Broome and Pope were 
now at enmity. Finally, Pope fired a general volley into 
the whole crowd of bad authors by grouping them under 
the head of various animals — tortoises, parrots, frogs, and so 
forth — and adding under each head the initials of the per- 
sons described. He had the audacity to declare that the ini- 
tials were selected at random. If so, a marvellous coincidence 
made nearly every pair of letters correspond to the name and 
surname of some contemporary poetaster. The classification 
was rather vague, but seems to have given special offence. 
Meanwhile Pope was planning a more elaborate cam- 
paign against his adversaries. He now appeared for the 
first time as a formal satirist, and the Dunciad, in which 
he came forward as the champion of Wit, taken in its 
broad sense, against its natural antithesis, Dulness, is in 
some respects his masterpiece. It is addressed to Swift, 
who probably assisted at some of its early stages. O thou, 
exclaims the poet — 



118 POPE. [chap. 

" thou, whatever title please thine ear, 
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver ! 
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air, 
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais's easy-chair — " 

And we feel that Swift is present in spirit tliroughout 
the composition. " The great fault of the Dunciad,'''' says 
Warton, an intelligent and certainly not an over- severe 
critic, "is the excessive vehemence of the satire. It has 
been compared," he adds, " to the geysers propelling a vast 
column of boiling water by the force of subterranean fire ;" 
and he speaks of some one who, after reading a book of 
the Dunciad, always soothes himself by a canto of the 
Faery Queen. Certainly a greater contrast could not easily 
be suggested ; and yet I think that the remark requires at 
least modification. The Dunciad, indeed, is, beyond all 
question, full of coarse abuse. The second book, in par- 
ticular, illustrates that strange delight in the physically dis- 
gusting which Johnson notices as characteristic of Pope 
and his master. Swift. In the letter prefixed to the Dun- 
ciad, Pope tries to justify his abuse of his enemies by the 
example of Boileau, whom he appears to have considered 
as his great prototype. But Boileau would have been re- 
volted by the brutal images which Pope does not hesitate 
to introduce ; and it is a curious phenomenon that the 
poet who is pre-eminently the representative of polished 
society should openly take such pleasure in unmixed filth. 
Polish is sometimes very thin. It has been suggested that 
Swift, who was with Pope during the composition, may 
have been directly responsible for some of these brutalities. 
At any rate, as I have said. Pope has liere been working in 
the Swift spirit, and this gives, I think, the key-note of his 
Dunciad. 

The geyser comparison is so far misleading that Pope 



v.] THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 119 

is not in liis most spiteful mood. There is not that infu- 
sion of personal venom which appears so strongly in the 
character of Sporus and similar passages. In reading them 
we feel that the poet is writhing under some bitter morti- 
fication, and trying with concentrated malice to sting his 
adversary in the tenderest places. We hear a tortured vic- 
tim screaming out the shrillest taunts at his tormentor. 
The abuse in the Dunciad is by comparison broad and 
even jovial. The tone at which Pope is aiming is that 
suggested by the "laughing and shaking in Rabelais's easy- 
chair," It is meant to be a boisterous guffaw from capa- 
cious lungs, an enormous explosion of superlative contempt 
for the mob of stupid thick-skinned scribblers. They are 
to be overwhelmed with gigantic cachinnations, ducked in 
the dirtiest of drains, rolled over and over with rough horse- 
play, pelted with the least savoury of rotten eggs, not skil- 
fully anatomized or pierced with dexterously directed nee- 
dles. Pope has really stood by too long, watching their 
tiresome antics and receiving their taunts, and he must, 
once for all, speak out and give them a lesson, 

" Out with it, Dunciad ! let the secret pass, 
That secret to each fool — that he's an ass !" 

That is his account of his feelings in the prologue to the 
Satires, and he answers the probable remonstrance. 

"You think this cruel? Take it for a rule, 
No creature smarts so Httle as a fool." 

To reconcile us to such laughter, it should have a more 
genial tone than Pope could find in his nature. We ought 
to feel, and we certainly do not feel, that after the joke has 
been fired off there should be some possibility of reconcili- 
ation, or, at least, we should find some recognition of the 
6* 



120 POPE. [chap. 

fact that the victims are not to be hated simply because 
they were not such clever fellows as Pope. There is some- 
thing cruel in Pope's laughter, as in Swift's. The missiles 
are not mere filth, but are weighted with hard materials 
that bruise and mangle. He professes that his enemies 
were the first aggressors, a plea which can be only true in 
part; and he defends himself, feebly enough, against the 
obvious charge that he has ridiculed men for being ob- 
scure, poor, and stupid — faults not to be amended by satire, 
nor rightfully provocative of enmity. In fact, Pope knows 
Iq his better moments that a man is not necessarily wicked 
because he sleeps on a bulk, or writes verses in a garret ; 
but he also knows that to mention those facts will give his 
enemies pain, and he cannot refrain from the use of so 
handy a weapon. 

Such faults make one half ashamed of confessing to 
reading the Dunciad with pleasure ; and yet it is frequent- 
ly written with such force and freedom that we half par- 
don the cruel little persecutor, and admire the vigour 
with Avhioh he throws down the gauntlet to the natural 
enemies of genius. The Dunciad is modelled upon the 
Mac Flecknoe, in which Dry den celebrates the appoint- 
ment of Elkanah Shadwell to succeed Flecknoe as mon- 
'arch of the realms of Dulness, and describes the coro- 
nation ceremonies. Pope imitates many passages, and 
adopts the general design. Though he does not equal 
the vigour of some of Dryden's lines, and wages war in 
a more ungenerous spirit, the Dunciad has a wider scope 
than its original, and shows Pope's command of his weap- 
ons in occasional felicitous phrases, in the vigour of the ver- 
sification, and in the general sense of form and clear pre- 
sentation of the scene imagined. For a successor to the 
great empire of Dulness he chose (in the original form of 



V.J THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 121 

the poem) the unlucky Theobald, a writer to whom the 
merit is attributed of having first illustrated Shak.speare 
by a study of the contemporary literature. In doing 
this he had fallen foul of Pope, who could claim no such 
merit for his own editorial work, and Pope, therefore, re- 
garded him as a grovelling antiquarian. As such, he was 
a fit pretender enough to the throne once occupied by 
Settle. The Dunciad begins by a spirited description of 
the goddess brooding in her cell upon the eve of a Lord 
Mayor's day, when the proud scene was o'er, 

" But lived in Settle's numbers one day more." 

The predestined hero is meanwhile musing in his Goth- 
ic library, and addresses a solemn invocation to Dulness, 
who accepts his sacrifice — a pile of his own works — trans- 
ports him to her temple, and declares him to be the legit- 
imate successor to the former rulers of her kingdom. The 
second book describes the games held in honour of the 
new ruler. Some of them are, as a frank critic observes, 
" beastly ;" but a brief report of the least objectionable 
may serve as a specimen of the whole performance. 
Dulness, with her court descends 

" To where Fleet Ditch with disemboguing streams 
Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, 
The king of dykes than whom no sluice of mud 
With deeper sable blots the silver flood. — 
Here strip, my children, here at once leap in ; 
Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin, 
And who the most in love of dirt excel." 

And, certainly by the poet's account, they all love it as 
well as their betters. The competitors in this contest 
are drawn from the unfortunates immersed in what War- 
burton calls " the common sink of all such writers (as 



122 POPE. [chap. 

Kalph) — a political newspaper." They were all hateful, 
partly because they were on the side of Walpole, and 
therefore, by Pope's logic, unprincipled hirelings, and 
more, because in that cause, as others, they had assault- 
ed Pope and his friend. There is Okhnixon, a hack writ- 
er employed in compilations, who accused Atterbury of 
falsifying Clarendon, and was accused of himself falsify- 
ing historical documents in the interests of Whiggisrn ; 
and Smedley, an Irish clergyman, a special enemy of 
Swift's, who had just printed a collection of assaults 
upon the miscellanies called GuUiveriana ; and Concanen, 
another Irishman, an ally of Theobald's, and (it may be 
noted) of Warburton's, who attacked the Bathos, and re- 
ceived — of course, for the worst services — an appointment 
in Jamaica ; and Arnall, one of Walpole's most favoured 
journalists, who was said to have received for himself or 
others near 11,000Z. in four years. Each dives in a way 
supposed to be characteristic, Oldmixon with the pathetic 

exclamation, 

" And am I now threescore ? 
Ah, why, ye gods, should two and two make four ?" 

Concanen, "a cold, long-winded native of the deep," 
dives perseveringly, but without causing a ripple in the 

stream : 

" Not so bold Arnall — with a weight of skull 
Furious he dives, precipitately dull," 

and ultimately emerges to claim the prize, "with half the 
bottom on his head." But Smedley, who has been given 
up for lost, comes up, 

" Shaking the horrors of his sable brows," 

and relates how he has been sucked in by the mud-nymphs, 
and how they have shown him a branch of Styx which 



v.] THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 123 

here pours into the Thames, and difEuses its soporific va- 
pours over the temple and its purlieus. He is solemnly 
welcomed by Milbourn (a reverend antagonist of Dryden), 
who tells him to " receive these robes which once were 

mine," 

" Duluess is sacred in a sound divine." 

The games are concluded in the second book; and in 
the third the hero, sleeping in the Temple of Dulness, 
meets in a vision the ghost of Settle, who reveals to him 
the future of his empire ; tells how Dulness is to over- 
spread the world, and revive the triumphs of Goths and 
monks ; how the hated Dennis, and Gildon, and others, 
are to overwhelm scorners, and set up at court, and pre- 
side over arts and sciences, though a fit of temporary san- 
ity causes him to give a warning to the deists — 

"But learn, ye dunces ! not to scorn j'our God — " 

and how posterity is to witness the decay of the stage, 
under a deluge of silly farce, opera, and sensation dramas ; 
how bad architects are to deface the works of Wren and 
Inigo Jones ; whilst the universities and public schools 
are to be given up to games and idleness, and the birch 
is to be abolished. 

Fragments of the prediction have not been entirely 
falsified, though the last couplet intimates a hope : 

" Enough ! enougli ! tlie raptured monarch cries, 
And through the ivory gate the vision flies," 

The Dunciad was thus a declaration of war against the 
whole tribe of scribblers ; and, like other such declara- 
tions, it brought more consequences than Pope foresaw. 
It introduced Pope to a very dangerous line of conduct. 
Swift had written to Pope in 1725 : " Take care that the 



124 POPE. [chap. 

bad poets do not outwit you, as tliey have served the good 
ones in every age, whom they have provoked to transmit 
their names to posterity ;" and the Dunciad has been 
generally censured from Swift's point of view. Satire, 
it is said, is wasted upon such insignificant persons. To 
this Pope might have replied, with some plausibility, that 
the interest of satire must always depend upon its inter- 
nal qualities, not upon our independent knowledge of its 
object. Though Gildon and Arnall are forgotten, the type 
" dunce " is eternal. The warfare, however, was demoral- 
izing in another sense. Whatever may have been the in- 
justice of Pope's attacks upon individuals, the moral stand- 
ard of the Grub-street population was far from exalted. 
The poor scribbler had too many temptations to sell him- 
self, and to evade the occasional severity of the laws of 
libel by humiliating contrivances. Moreover, the uncer- 
tainty of the law of copyright encouraged the lower class 
of booksellers to undertake all kinds of piratical enter- 
prises, and to trade in various ways upon the fame of 
well-known authors, by attributing trash to them, or pur- 
loining and publishing what the authors would have sup- 
pressed. Dublin was to London what New York is now, 
and successful books were at once reproduced in Ireland. 
Thus the lower strata of the literary class frequently prac- 
tised with impunity all manner of more or less discredit- 
able trickery, and Pope, with his morbid propensity for 
mystification, was only too apt a pupil in such arts. 
Though the tone of his public utterances was always of 
the loftiest, he was like a civilized commander who, in 
carrying on a war with savages, finds it convenient to 
adopt the practices which he professes to disapprove. 

The whole publication of the Dunciad was surround- 
ed with tricks, intended partly to evade possible conse- 



v.] THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 125 

quences, and partly to excite public interest, or to cause 
amusement at the expense of the bewildered victims. 
Part of the plot was concerted with Swift, who, however, 
does not appear to have been quite in the secret. The 
complete poem was intended to appear with an elaborate 
mock commentary by Scriblerus, explaining some of the al- 
lusions, and with " proeme, prolegomena, testiinonia scrip- 
torum, index auctorum, and notfe variorum." In the first 
instance, however, it appeared in a mangled form without 
this burlesque apparatus or the lines to Swift. Four 
editions were issued in this form in 1*728, and with a 
mock notice from the publisher, expressing a hope that 
the author would be provoked to give a more perfect edi- 
tion. This, accordingly, appeared in 1729. Pope seems 
to have been partly led to this device by a principle which 
he avowed to Warburton. When he had anything spe- 
cially sharp to say he kept it for a second edition, where 
it would, he thought, pass with less offence. But he may 
also have been under the impression that all the mystery 
of apparently spurious editions would excite public curi- 
osity. He adopted other devices for avoiding unpleasant 
consequences. It was possible that his victims might ap- 
peal to the law. In order to throw dust in their eyes, 
two editions appeared in Dublin and London — the Dublin 
edition professing to be a reprint from a London edition, 
whilst the London edition professed in the same way to 
be the reprint of a Dublin edition. To oppose another 
obstacle to prosecutors, he assigned the Dunciad to three 
noblemen — Lords Bathurst, Burlington, and Oxford — who 
transferred their right to Pope's publisher. Pope would 
be sheltered behind these responsible persons, and an ag- 
grieved person might be slower to attack persons of high 
position and property. By yet another device Pope ap- 



126 POPE. [chap. 

plied for an injunction in Chancery to suppress a piratical 
London edition ; but ensured the failure of his applica- 
tion by not supplying the necessary proofs of property. 
This trick, repeated, as we shall see, on another occasion, 
was intended either to shirk responsibility or to increase 
the notoriety of the book. A further mystification was 
equally characteristic. To the Dunciad in its enlarged 
form is prefixed a letter, really written by Pope himself, 
but praising his morality and genius, and justifying his 
satire in terms which would have been absurd in Pope's 
own mouth. He therefore induced a Major Cleland, a 
retired officer of some position, to put his name to the 
letter, which it is possible that he may have partly written. 
The device was transparent, and only brought ridicule 
upon its author. Finally, Pope published an account of 
the publication in the name of Savage, known by John- 
son's biography, who seems to have been a humble ally 
of the great man — at once a convenient source of informa- 
tion and a tool for carrying on this underground warfare. 
Pope afterwards incorporated this statement — which was 
meant to prove, by some palpable falsehoods, that the 
dunces had not been the aggressors — in his own notes, 
without Savage's name. This labyrinth of unworthy de- 
vices was more or less visible to Pope's antagonists. It 
might in some degree be excusable as a huge practical 
joke, absurdly elaborate for the purpose, but it led Pope 
into some slippery ways, where no such excuse is avail- 
able. 

Pope, says Johnson, contemplated his victory over the 
dunces with great exultation. Through his mouth-piece, 
Savage, he described the scene on the day of publication ; 
how a crowd of authors besieged the shop and threatened 
him with violence ; how the booksellers and hawkers 



T.] • THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 127 

struggled with small success for copies ; how the dunces 
formed clubs to devise measures of retaliation ; how one 
■wrote to ministers to denounce Pope as a traitor, and an- 
other brought an image in clay to execute him in effigy ; 
and how successive editions, genuine and spurious, follow- 
ed each other, distinguished by an owl or an ass on the 
frontispiece, and provoking infinite controversy amongst 
rival vendors. It is unpleasant to have ugly names hurled 
at one by the first writer of the day ; but the abuse was 
for the most part too general to be libellous. Nor would 
there be any great interest now in exactly distributing the 
blame between Pope and his enemies. A word or two 
may be said of one of the most conspicuous quarrels. 

Aaron Hill was a fussy and ambitious person, full of 
literary and other schemes ; devising a plan for extracting 
oil from beech-nuts, and writing a Pindaric ode on the 
occasion ; felling forests in the Highlands to provide tim- 
ber for the navy ; and, as might be inferred, spending 
instead of making a fortune. He was a stage -manager, 
translated Voltaire's Merope, wrote words for Handel's 
first composition in England, wrote unsuccessful plays, a 
quantity of unreadable poetry, and corresponded with 
most of the literary celebrities. Pope put his initials, 
A. H., under the head of " Flying Fishes," in the Bathos, 
as authors who now and then rise upon their fins and fly, 
but soon drop again to the profound. In the Dunciad he 
reappeared amongst the divers. 

" Then * * tried, but hardly snatch'd from sight 
Instant buoys up, and rises into light: 
He bears no token of the sable streams, 
And mounts far off amongst the swans of Thames." 

A note applied the lines to Hill, with whom he had had a 



128 POPE. [cuAP. 

former misunderstanding. Hill replied to these assaults 
by a ponderous satire in verse upon " tuneful Alexis ;" it 
had, however, some tolerable lines at the opening, imi- 
tated from Pope's own verses upon Addison, and attrib- 
uting to him the same jealousy of merit in others. Hill 
soon afterwards wrote a civil note to Pope, complaining 
of the passage in the Dunciad. Pope miglit have relied 
upon the really satisfactory answer that the lines were, on 
the whole, complimentary ; indeed, more complimentary 
than true. But with his natural propensity for lying, he 
resorted to his old devices. In answer to this and a sub- 
sequent letter, in which Hill retorted with unanswerable 
force. Pope went on to declare that he was not the author 
of the notes, that the extracts had been chosen at random, 
that he would " use his influence with the editors of the 
Dunciad to get the notes altered ;" and, finally, by an in- 
genious evasion, pointed out that the blank in the Dtcnciad 
required to be filled up by a dissyllable. This, in the 
form of the lines as quoted above, is quite true, but in the 
first edition of the Dunciad the first verse had been 

" H tried the next, but hardly snatch'd from sight." 

Hill did not detect this specimen of what Pope somewhere 
calls " pretty genteel equivocation." He was reconciled to 
Pope, and taught the poor poet by experience that his 
friendship was worse than his enmity. He wrote him let- 
ters of criticism ; he forced poor Pope to negotiate for 
him with managers and to bring distinguished friends to 
the performances of his dreary plays ; nay, to read through, 
or to say that he had read through, one of them in manu- 
script four times, and make corrections mixed with elabo- 
rate eulogy. No doubt Pope came to regard a letter from 
Hill with teiTor, though Hill compared him to Horace and 



v.] THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 129 

Juvenal, and hoped tliat he would live till the virtues 
which his spirit would propagate became as general as the 
esteem of his genius. In short, Hill, who was a florid flat- 
terer, is so complimentary that we are not surprised to 
find him telling Richardson, after Pope's death, that the 
poet's popularity was due to a certain " bladdery swell of 
management." " But," he concludes, " rest his memory 
in peace ! It will very rarely be disturbed by that time he 
himself is ashes." 

The war raged for some time. Dennis, Smedley, Moore- 
Smythe,Welsted, and others, retoi'ted by various pamphlets, 
the names of which were published by Pope in an appen- 
dix to future editions of the Dunciad, by way of proving 
that his own blows had told. Lady Mary was credited, 
perhaps unjustly, with an abusive performance called a 
" Pop upon Pope," relating how Pope had been soundly 
whipped by a couple of his victims — of course a pure fic- 
tion. Some such vengeance, however, was seriously threat- 
ened. As Pope was dining one day at Lord Bathurst's, 
the servant brought in the agreeable message that a young- 
man was waiting for Mr. Pope in the lane outside, and 
that the young man's name was Dennis. He was the son 
of the critic, and prepared to avenge his father's wrongs; 
but Bathurst persuaded him to retire, without the glory of 
thrashing a cripple. Reports of such possibilities were 
circulated, and Pope thought it prudent to walk out with 
his big Danish dog Bounce and a pair of pistols. Spence 
ti'ied to persuade the little man not to go out alone, but 
Pope declared that he would not go a step out of his way 
for such villains, and that it was better to die than to live 
in fear of them. He continued, indeed, to give fresh prov- 
ocation. A weekly paper, called the Grub-street Journal, 
was started in Januarj^, 1730, and continued to appear till 



130 POPE. [chap. 

the end of 1737. It included a continuous series of epi- 
grams and abuse, in the Scriblerian vein, and aimed against 
the heroes of the Dunciad, amongst whom poor James 
Moore -Smythe seems to have had the largest share of 
abuse. It was impossible, however, for Pope, busied as he 
was in literature and society, and constantly out of health, 
to be the efficient editor of such a performance ; but 
though he denied having any concern in it, it is equally 
out of the question that any one really unconnected with 
Pope should have taken up the huge burden of his quar- 
rels in this fashion. Though he concealed, and on occa- 
sions denied his connexion, he no doubt inspired the edi- 
tors and contributed articles to its pages, especially during 
its early years. It is a singular fact — or, rather, it would 
have been singular, had Pope been a man of less abnormal 
character — that he should have devoted so much energy to 
this paltry subterranean warfare against the objects of his 
complex antipathies. Pope was so anxious for conceal- 
ment, that he kept his secret even from his friendly legal 
adviser, Fortescue ; and Fortescue innocently requested 
Pope to get up evidence to support a charge of libel 
against his own organ. The evidence which Pope collect- 
ed — in defence of a quack-doctor. Ward — was not, as we 
may suppose, very valuable. Two volumes of the Grub- 
street Journal were printed in 1737, and a fragment or 
two was admitted by Pope into his works. It is said, in 
the preface to the collected pieces, that the journal was 
killed by the growing popularity of the OentlemarCs Mag- 
azine, which is accused of living by plunder. But in truth 
the reader will infer that, if the selection includes the best 
pieces, the journal may well have died from congenital 
weakness. 

The Dunciad was yet to go through a transformation. 



v.] THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 131 

and to lead to a new quarrel; and though this happened 
at a much later period, it will be most convenient to com- 
plete the story here. Pope had formed an alliance with 
Warburton, of which I shall presently have to speak ; and 
it was under Warburton's influence that he resolved to add 
a fourth book to the Dunciad. This supplement seems to 
have been really made up of fragments provided for anoth- 
er scheme. The Essay on Man — to be presently men- 
tioned — was to be followed by a kind of poetical essay 
upon the nature and limits of the human understanding, 
and a satire upon the misapplication of the serious facul- 
ties.' It was a design manifestly beyond the author's 
powers ; and even the fragment which is turned into the 
fourth book of the Dunciad takes him plainly out of his 
depth. He was no philosopher, and therefore an incom- 
petent assailant of the abuses of philosophy. The fourth 
book consists chiefly of ridicule upon pedagogues who 
teach words instead of things ; upon the unlucky " vir- 
tuosos " who care for old medals, plants, and butterflies — 
pursuits which afforded an unceasing supply of ridicule to 
the essayists of the time ; a denunciation of the corruption 
of modern youth, who learn nothing but new forms of 
vice in the grand tour ; and a fresh assault upon Toland, 
Tindal, and other freethinkers of the day. There were 
some passages marked by Pope's usual dexterity, but the 
whole is awkwardly constructed, and has no very intelligi- 
ble connexion with the first part. It was highly admired 
at the time, and, amongst others, by Gray. He specially 
praises a passage which has often been quoted as repre- 
senting Pope's highest achievement in his art. At the 
conclusion the goddess Dulness yawns, and a blight falls 

' See Pope to Swift, March 25, 1Y36. 



132 POPE. [chap. 

upon art, science, and pliilosophy. I quote the lines, 
which Pope himself could not repeat without emotion, 
and which have received the highest eulogies from John- 
son and Thackeray. 

" In vain, in vain — tlie all-composing Hour 
Resistless falls ; the Muse obeys the Power — 
She comes ! she comes ! the sable throne behold 
Of night primeval and of chaos old ! 
Before her Fancy's gilded clouds decay, 
And all its varying rainbows die away. 
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires. 
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. 
As one by one, at dread Medea's strain, 
The sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain ; 
As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand oppress'd 
Closed one by one to everlasting rest ; 
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might, 
Art after art goes out, and all is night. 
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled. 
Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head ! 
Philosophy, that lean'd on heaven before. 
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. 
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence, 
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense ! 
See Mystery to Mathematics fly! 
In vain ! They gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. 
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, 
And unawares Morality expires. 
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine ; 
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! 
Lo ! thy dread empire, Chaos ! is restored ; 
Light dies before thy uncreating word ; 
Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall. 
And universal darkness buries all." 

The most conspicuous figure in tliis new Dunciad (pub- 
lished March, 1*742), is Bentlcy — taken as the representa- 



v.] THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 133 

tive of a pedant rampant. Bentley is, I think, the only 
man of real genius of whom Pope has spoken in terras 
implying gross misappreciation. With all his faults, Pope 
was a really fine judge of literature, and has made fewer 
blunders than such men as Addison, Gray, and Johnson, 
infinitely superior to him in generosity of feeling towards 
the living. He could even appreciate Bentley, and had 
written, in his copy of Bentley's Miltcn, '''' Pulchre, bene, 
recte^'' against some of the happier emendations in the 
great critic's most unsuccessful performance. The assault 
in the Dunciad is not the less unsparing and ignorantly 
contemptuous of scholarship. The explanation is easy. 
Bentley, who had spoken contemptuously of Pope's Ho- 
mer, said of Pope, " the portentous cub never forgives." 
But this was not all. Bentley had provoked enemies by 
his intense pugnacity almost as freely as Pope by his sneak- 
ing malice. Swift and Atterbury, objects of Pope's friend- 
ly admiration, had been his antagonists, and Pope would 
naturally accept their view of his iTierits. And, moreover. 
Pope's great ally of this period had a dislike of his own 
to Bentley. Bentley had said of Warburton that he was 
a man of monstrous appetite and bad digestion. The re- 
mark hit Warburton's most obvious weakness. Warbur- 
ton, with his imperfect scholarship, and vast masses of 
badly assimilated learning, was jealous of the reputation 
of the thoroughly trained and accurate critic. It was the 
dislike of a charlatan for the excellence which he endeav- 
oured to simulate. Bolingbroke, it may be added, was 
equally contemptuous in his language about men of learn- 
ing, and for much the same reason. He depreciated what 
he could not rival. Pope, always under the influence of 
some stronger companions, naturally adopted their shallow 
prejudices, and recklessly abused a writer who should have 



134 POPE. [chap. 

been recognized as amongst the most effective combatants 
against dulness. 

Bcntley died a few months after the publication of the 
Dunciad. But Pope found a living antagonist, who suc- 
ceeded in giving him pain enough to gratify the vilified 
dunces. This was Colley Gibber — most lively and mercu- 
rial of actors — author of some successful plays, with too lit- 
tle stuff in them for permanence, and of an Apology for 
his own Life, which is still exceedingly amusing as well as 
useful for the history of the stage. He was now approaching 
seventy, though he was to survive Pope for thirteen years, 
and as good-tempered a specimen of the lively, if not too 
particular, old man of the world as could well have been 
found. Pope owed him a grudge. Gibber, in playing 
the Rehearsal, had introduced some ridicule of the un- 
lucky Three Hours after Marriage. Pope, he says, came 
behind the scenes foaming and choking with fury, and for- 
bidding Gibber ever to repeat the insult. Gibber laughed 
at him, said that he would repeat it as long as the Rehear- 
sal was performed, and kept his word. Pope took his re- 
venge by many incidental hits at Gibber, and Gibber made 
a good-humoured reference to this abuse in the Apology. 
Hereupon Pope, in the new Dunciad, described him as 
reclining on the lap of the goddess, and added various 
personalities in the notes. Gibber straightway published 
a letter to Pope, the more cutting because still in perfect 
good-humour, and told the story about the original quar- 
rel. He added an irritating anecdote in order to provoke 
the poet still further. It described Pope as introduced 
by Gibber and Lord Warwick to very bad company. The 
story was one which could only be told by a graceless old 
representative of the old school of comedy, but it hit its 
mark. The two Richardsons once found Pope reading 



T.] THE WAR WITH THE DUNCES. 135 

one of Gibber's pamphlets. He said, " These things are 
my diversion ;" but they saw his features writhing with 
anguish, and young Richardson, as they went home, ob- 
served to his father that lie hoped to be preserved from 
such diversions as Pope had enjoyed. The poet resolved 
to avenge himself, and he did it to the lasting injury of 
his poem. lie dethroned Theobald, who, as a plodding 
antiquarian, was an excellent exponent of dulness, and in- 
stalled Gibber in his place, who might be a representative 
of folly, but was as little of a dullard as Pope himself. 
The consequent alterations make the hero of the poem a 
thoroughly incongruous figure, and greatly injure the gen- 
eral design. The poem appeared in this form in 1743, 
■with a ponderous prefatory discourse by Ricardus Aris- 
tarchus, contributed by the faithful Warburton, and illus- 
trating his ponderous vein of elephantine pleasantry. 

Pope was nearing the grave, and many of his victims 
had gone before him. It was a melancholy employment 
for an invalid, breaking down visibly month by month ; 
and one might fancy that the eminent Ghristian divine 
might have used his influence to better purpose than in 
fanning the dying flame, and adding the strokes of his 
bludgeon to the keen stabs of Pope's stiletto. In the 
fourteen years which had elapsed since the first Dunciad, 
Pope had found less unworthy employment for his pen ; 
but, before dealing with the works produced at this time, 
"which include some of his highest achievements, I must 
tell a story which is in some ways a natural supplement 
to the war with the dunces. In describing Pope's en- 
tangled history, it seems most convenient to follow each 
separate line of discharge of his multifarious energy, rath- 
er than to adhere to chronological order. 
7 



CHAPTER YV 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

I HAVE now to describe one of the most singular series 
of transactions to be found in the annals of literature. A 
complete knowledge of their various details has only been 
obtained by recent researches. I cannot follow within my 
limits of space all the ins and outs of the complicated 
labyrinth of more than diplomatic trickery Avhich those 
researches have revealed, though I hope to render the main 
facts sufficiently intelligible. It is painful to track the 
strange deceptions of a man of genius as a detective un- 
ravels the misdeeds of an accomplished swindler; but with- 
out telling the story at some length, it is impossible to give 
a faithful exhibition of Pope's character. 

In the year 1726, when Pope had just finished his la- 
bours upon Homer, Curll published the juvenile letters to 
Cromwell. There was no mystery about this transaction. 
Curll was the chief of all piratical booksellers, and versed 
in every dirty trick of the Grub-street trade. He is de- 
scribed in that mad book, Amory's John Bunde, as tall, thin, 
ungainly, white-faced, with light grey goggle eyes, purblind, 

^ The evidence by which the statements in this chapter are sup- 
ported is fully set forth in Jlr. Elwin's edition of Pope's Works, Vol. 
I., and in the notes to the Orrery Correspondence in the third volume 
of letters. 



CHAP. VI.] CORRESPONDENCE. 137 

splay-footed, and " baker-kneed," According to the sarae 
queer authority, who professes to have lodged in Curll's 
house, he was drunk as often as he could drink for noth- 
ing, and intimate in every London haunt of vice. " His 
translators lay three in a bed at the Pewter Platter Inn in 
Holborn," and helped to compile his indecent, piratical, and 
catchpenny productions. He had lost his ears for some 
obscene publication ; but Amory adds, " to his glory," 
that he died " as great a penitent as ever expired." He 
had one strong point as an antagonist. Having no char- 
acter to lose, he could reveal his own practices without a 
blush, if the revelation injured others. 

Pope had already come into collision with this awkward 
antagonist. In 1716 Curll threatened to publish the Toivn 
Eclogues, burlesques upon Ambrose Philips, written by 
Lady Mary, with the help of Pope and perhaps Gay. Pope, 
with Lintot, had a meeting with Curll in the hopes of 
suppressing a publication calculated to injure his friends. 
The party had some wine, and Curll, on going home, was 
very sick. He declared — and there are reasons for believ- 
ing his story — that Pope had given him an emetic by way 
of coarse practical joke. Pope, at any rate, took advantage 
of the accident to write a couple of squibs upon Curll, re- 
cording the bookseller's ravings under the action of the 
drug, as lie had described the ravings of Dennis provoked 
by Cato. Curll had his revenge afterwards ; but mean- 
while he wanted no extraneous motive to induce him to 
publish the Cromwell letters. Cromwell had given the 
letters to a mistress, who fell into distress and sold them 
to Curll for ten guineas. 

The correspondence was received with some favour, and 
suggested to Pope a new mode of gratifying his vanity. 
An occasion soon offered itself. Theobald, the hero of 



138 rOPE. [chap. 

the Dunciad, edited in 1728 the posthumous works of 
AVycherley. Pope extracted from this circumstance a far- 
fetched excuse for pubUshing the Wycherley correspond- 
ence. He said that it was due to Wycherley's memory to 
prove, by the pubUcation of tlicir correspondence, that the 
posthumous publication of the works was opposed to tlieir 
author's wishes. As a matter of fact, the letters liave no 
tendency to prove anything of the kind, or, rather, they 
support the opposite theory ; but poor Pope was always a 
hand-to-mouth liar, and took the first pretext that offered, 
without caring for consistency or confirmation. His next 
step was to write to liis friend. Lord Oxford, son of Queen 
Anne's minister. Oxford was a weak, good-natured man. 
By cultivating a variety of expensive tastes, without the 
knowledge to guide them, he managed to run through a 
splendid fortune and die in embarrassment. His famous 
library was one of his special hobbies. Pope now applied 
to him to allow the Wycherley letters to be deposited in 
the library, and further requested that the fact of their be- 
ing in this quasi-public place might be mentioned in the 
preface as a guarantee of their authenticity. Oxford con- 
sented, and Pope quietly took a further step without au- 
thority. He told Oxford that he had decided to make his 
publishers say that copies of the letters had been obtained 
from Lord Oxford. He told the same story to Swift, 
speaking of the " connivance" of his noble friend, and 
adding that, though he did not himself "much approve" 
of the publication, he was not ashamed of it. He thus in- 
geniously intimated that the correspondence, which he had 
himself carefully prepared and sent to press, had been 
printed without his consent by the officious zoal of Oxford 
and the booksellers. 

The book (which was called the second vol-ume of Wych- 



VI.] ■ CORRESPONDENCE. 139 

eriey's works) has entirely disappeared. It was advertised 
at the time, but not a single copy is known to exist. One 
cause of this disappearance now appears to be that it had 
no sale at first, and that Pope preserved the sheets for use 
in a more elaborate device which followed. Oxford prob- 
ably objected to the misuse of his name, as the fiction 
which made him responsible was afterwards dropped. 
Pope found, or thought that he had found, on the next oc- 
casion, a more convenient cat's-paw. Curll, it could not 
be doubted, would snatch at any chance of publishing more 
correspondence ; and, as Pope was anxious to have his let- 
ters stolen and Curll was ready to steal, the one thing nec- 
essary was a convenient go-between, who could be disown- 
ed or altogether concealed. Pope went systematically to 
Avork. He began by writing to his friends, begging theni 
to return his letters. After Curll's piracy, he declared, he 
could not feel himself safe, and should be unhappy till he 
had the letters in his own custody. Letters were sent in, 
though in some cases with reluctance ; and Caryl), in par- 
ticular, who had the largest number, privately took copies 
before returning them (a measure which ultimately secured 
the detection of many of Pope's manccuvres). This, how- 
ever, was unknown to Pope. He had the letters copied 
out ; after (according to his own stating) burning three- 
fourths of them, and (as we are now aware) carefully edit- 
ing the remainder, he had the copy deposited in Lord Ox- 
ford's library. His object was, as he said, partly to have 
documents ready in case of the revival of scandals, and 
partly to preserve the memory of his friendships. The 
next point was to get these letters stolen. For this pur- 
pose he created a man of straw, a mysterious " P. T.," who 
could be personated on occasion by some of the underlings 
employed in the underground transactions connected with 



140 rOPE. [ciiAP. 

the Dunciad and the Gruh-street Journal. P. T. began 
by writing to Curll in 1733, and offering to sell him a col- 
lection of Pope's letters. The negotiation went off for a 
time, because P. T. insisted upon Curll's first committing 
himself by publishing an advertisement, declaring himself 
to be already in possession of the originals. Curll was too 
wary to commit himself to such a statement, which would 
have made him responsible for the theft ; or, perhaps, have 
justified Pope in publishing the originals in self-defence. 
The matter slept till March, 1735, when Curll wrote to 
Pope proposing a cessation of hostilities, and as a proof of 
good-Avill sending him the old P. T. advertisement. This 
step fell in so happily with Pope's designs that it has been 
suggested that Curll was prompted in some indirect man- 
ner by one of Pope's agents. Pope, at any rate, turned it 
to account. He at once published an insulting advertise- 
ment. Curll (he said in this manifesto) had pi-etended to 
have had the offer from P. T. of a large collection of 
Pope's letters; Pope knew nothing of P. T., believed the 
letters to be forgeries, and would take no more trouble in 
the matter. Whilst Curll was presumably smarting under 
this summary slap on the face, the insidious P. T. stepped 
in once more. P. T. now said that he was in possession 
of the printed sheets of the correspondence, and the nego- 
tiation went on swimmingly. Curll put out the required 
advertisement ; a " short, squat " man, in a clergyman's 
gown and with barrister's bands, calling himself Smythe, 
came to his house at night as P. T.'s agent, and showed 
him some printed sheets and original letters; the bargain 
was struck; 240 copies of the book were delivered, and it 
was published on May 12. 

So far the plot had succeeded. Pope had printed his 
own correspondence, and had tricked Curll into publishing 



VI.] CORRESPONDENCE. 141 

the book piratically, wbilst the public Avas quite prepared 
to believe tliat Curll had performed a new piratical feat. 
Pope, however, was now bound to shriek as loudly as he 
could at the outrage under which he was suffering. He 
should have been prepared also to answer an obvious ques- 
tion. Every one would naturally inquire how Curll had 
procured the letters, wliich by Pope's own account were 
safely deposited in Lord Oxford's library. Without, as it 
would seem, properly weighing the difficulty of meeting 
this demand. Pope called out loudly for vengeance. When 
the Dunciad appeared, he had applied (as I have said) for 
an injunction in Chancery, and had at the same time se- 
cured the failure of his application. The same device was 
tried in a still more imposing fashion. The House of 
Lords had recently decided that it was a breach of privi- 
lege to publish a peer's letters without his consent. Pope 
availed himself of this rule to fire the most sounding of 
blank shots across the path of the piratical Curll. He was 
as anxious to allow the publication, as to demand its sup- 
pression in the most emphatic manner. Accordingly he 
got his friend, Lord Hay, to call the attention of the peers 
to Curll's advertisement, which was so worded as to imply 
that there were in the book letters from, as well as to, 
peers. Pope himself attended the house " to stimulate 
the resentment of his friends." The book was at once 
seized by a messenger, and Curll ordered to attend the 
next day. But on examination it immediately turned out 
that it contained no letters from peers, and the whole 
farce would have ended at once but for a further trick. 
Lord Hay said that a certain letter to Jervas contained a 
reflection upon Lord Burlington. Now the letter was 
found in a first batch of fifty copies sent to Curll, and 
which had been sold before the appearance of the Lords' 



142 POrE. [cuAP. 

messenger. But the letter liad been suppressed in a sec- 
ond batch of 190 copies, which the messenger was just in 
time to seize. Pope had of course foreseen and prepared 
this result. 

The whole proceeding in the Lords was thus rendered 
abortive. The books were restored to Ciirll, and the sale 
continued. But the device meanwhile had recoiled upon 
its author ; the very danger against which he should have 
guarded himself had now occurred. IIow were the letters 
procured ? Not till Curll was coming up for examination 
does it seem to have occurred to Pope that the Lords 
would inevitably ask the awkward question. He then 
saw that Curll's answer might lead to a discovery. He 
wrote a letter to Curll (in Smythe's name) intended to 
meet the difficulty. He entreated Curll to take the whole 
of the responsibility of procuring the letters upon himself, 
and by way of inducement held out hopes of another vol- 
ume of correspondence. Li a second note he tried to 
throw Curll off the scent of another significant little fact. 
The sheets (as I have mentioned) were partly made up 
from the volume of Wycherley correspondence ;' this 
would give a clue to further inquiries ; P. T. therefore al- 
lowed Smythe to say (ostensibly to show his confidence in 
Curll) that he (P. T.) had been employed in getting up 
the former volume, and had had some additional sheets 
struck off for himself, to which he had added letters sub- 
sequently obtained. The letter Avas a signal blunder. 
Curll saw at once that it put the game iu his hands. He 
was not going to tell lies to please the slippery P. T., or 
the short squat lawyer-clergyman. He had begun to see 

' This is proved bj' a note referring to " the present edition of the 
posthumous worlvs of Mr. Wychcrlc}'," whicli, by an oversight, was 
allowed to remain in the Curll volume. 



VI.] CORRESPONDENCE. 143 

tlirougli the whole manoeuvre, lie went straight off to 
the Lords' committee, told the whole stor}^ and produced 
as a voucher the letters in which P. T. begged for secrecy. 
Curll's word was good for little by itself, but his story 
hung together, and the letter confirmed it. And if, as now 
seemed clear, Curll was speaking the truth, the question 
remained, who was P. T., and how did he get the letters ? 
The answer, as Pope must have felt, was only too clear. 

But Curll now took the offensive. In reply to another 
letter from Smythe, complaining of his evidence, he went 
roundly to work; he said that he should at once publish 
all the correspondence. P. T. had prudently asked for 
the return of his letters ; but Curll had kept copies, and 
was prepared to swear to their fidelity. Accordingly he 
soon advertised what was called the Initial Correspondence. 
Pope was now caught in his own trap, lie had tried to 
avert suspicion by publicly offering a reward to Smythe 
and P. T., if they would " discover the whole affair." 
The letters, as lie admitted, must have been procured either 
from his own library or from Lord Oxford's. The corre- 
spondence to be published by Curll would help to identify 
the mysterious appropriators, and whatever excuses could 
be made ought now to be forthcoming. Pope adopted a 
singular plan. It was announced that the clergyman con- 
cerned with P. T. and Curll had " discovered the Avhole 
transaction." A narrative was forthwith published to an- 
ticipate Curll and to clear up the mystery. If good for 
anything, it should have given, or helped to give, the key 
to the great puzzle — the mode of obtaining the letters. 
There was nothing else for Smythe or P. T. to " discover." 
Readers must have been strangely disappointed on finding 
not a single word to throw light upon this subject, and 
merely a long account of the negotiations between Curll 



144 rOPE. [chap. 

and P. T. The narrative might serve to distract attention 
from the main point, which it clearly did nothing to elu- 
cidate. But Curll now stated his own case. He reprint- 
ed the narrative with some pungent notes ; he gave in 
full some letters omitted by P. T., and he added a story 
which was most unpleasantly significant. P. T. had spo- 
ken, as I have said, of his connexion with the Wycherley 
volume. The object of this statement was to get rid of 
an awkward bit of evidence. But Curll now announced, 
on the authority of Gilliver, the publisher of the volume, 
that Pope had himself bought up the remaining sheets. 
The inference was clear. Unless the story could be con- 
tradicted, and it never was. Pope was himself the thief. 
The sheets common to the two volumes had been traced 
to his possession. Nor was there a word in the P. T. nar- 
rative to diminish the force of these presumptions. In- 
deed it was curiously inconsistent, for it vaguely accused 
Curll of stealing the letters himself, whilst in the same 
breath it told how he had bought them from P. T. In 
fact, P. T. was beginning to resolve himself into thin air, 
like the phantom in the Dunciad. As he vanished, it re- 
quired no great acuteness to distinguish behind him the 
features of his ingenious creator. It was already believed 
at the time that the whole affair was an claboi-ate contriv- 
ance of Pope's, and subsequent revelations have demon- 
strated the truth of the hypothesis. Even the go-between 
Smythe was identified as one James Worsdale, a painter, 
actor, and autlior, of the Bohemian variety. 

Though Curll had fairly won the game, and Pope's 
intrigue was even at the time suflicicntly exposed, it 
seems to have given less scandal than might have been 
expected. Probably it was suspected only in literary cir- 
cles, and perhaps it might be thought that, silly as was the 



VI.] CORRESPONDENCE. 145 

elaborate device, the disreputable Curll -was fair game for 
his natural enemy. Indeed, such is the irony of fate. 
Pope won credit with simple people. The effect of the 
publication, as Johnson tells us, was to fill the nation with 
praises of the admirable moral qualities revealed in Pope's 
letters. Amongst the admirers was Ralph Allen, who had 
made a large fortune by farming the cross -posts. His 
princely benevolence and sterling worth were universally 
admitted, and have been immortalized by the best con- 
temporary judge of character. He was the original of 
Fielding's All worthy. Like that excellent person, he 
seems to have had the common weakness of good men in 
taking others too easily at their own valuation. Pope 
imposed upon him, just as Blifil imposed upon his repre- 
sentative. He was so much pleased with the correspond- 
ence, that he sought Pope's acquaintance, and offered to 
publish a genuine edition at his own expense. An au- 
thoritative edition appeared, accordingly, in 1*737. Pope 
preferred to publish by subscription, which does not seem 
to have filled very rapidly, though the work ultimately 
made a fair profit. Pope's underhand manoeuvres were 
abundantly illustrated in the history of this new edition. 
It is impossible to give the details ; but I may briefly state 
that he was responsible for a nominally spurious edition 
which appeared directly after, and was simply a reproduc- 
tion of, Curli's publication. Although he complained of 
the garbling and interpolations supposed to have been due 
to the wicked Curll or the phantom P. T., and although he 
omitted in his avowed edition certain letters which had 
given offence, he nevertheless substantially reproduced in 
it Curli's version of the letters. As this differs from the 
originals which have been preserved. Pope thus gave an 
additional proof that he was really responsible for Curli's 



146 rOPE. [chap. 

supposed garblino-. This evidence was adduced witli con- 
clusive force by Bowles in a later controversy, and would 
be enough by itself to convict Pope of the imputed de- 
ception. Finally, it may be added that Pope's delay in 
producing his own edition is explained by the fact that it 
contained many falsifications of his correspondence with 
Caryll, and that he delayed the acknowledgment of the 
genuine character of the letters until Caryll's death re- 
moved the danger of detection. 

The whole of this elaborate machinery was devised in 
order that Pope might avoid the ridicule of publishing his 
own correspondence. There had been few examples of a 
similar publication of private letters ; and Pope's volume, 
according to Johnson, did not attract very much attention. 
This is, perhaps, hardly consistent with Johnson's other 
assertion that it filled the nation with praises of his vir- 
tue. In any case it stimulated his appetite for sucli 
praises, and led him to a fresh intrigue, more successful, 
and also more disgraceful. The device originally adopted 
in publishing the Dunciad apparently suggested part of 
the new plot. The letters hitherto published did not in- 
clude the most interesting correspondence in which Pope 
had been engaged. Ho had been in the habit of writing 
to Swift since their first acquaintance, and Bolingbroke 
had occasionally joined him. These letters, which con- 
nected Pope with two of his most famous contemporaries, 
-■would be far more interesting than the letters to Cromwell 
or Wycherley, or even than the letters addressed to Addi- 
son and Steele, which were mere stilted fabrications. How 
could they be got before the world, and in such a way as 
to conceal his own complicity ? 

Pope had told Swift (in 1730) that he had kept some 
of the letters in a volume for his own secret satisfaction ; 



Ti.] CORRESPONDENCE. 147 

and Swift had preserved all Pope's letters along -with those 
of other distinguished men. Here was an attractive booty 
for such parties as the unprincipled Curll ! In 1735 Curll 
had committed his wicked piracy, and Pope pressed Swift 
to return his letters, in order to " secure him against that 
rascal printer." The entreaties were often renewed, but 
Swift for some reason turned his deaf ear to the sugges- 
tion. He promised, indeed (September 3, 1735), that the 
letters should be burnt — a most effectual security against 
republication, but one not at all to Pope's taste. Pope 
then admitted that, having been forced to publish some 
of his other letters, he should like to make use of some 
of those to Swift, as none would be more honourable to 
him. Nay, he says, he meant to erect such a minute 
monument of their friendship as Avould put to shame all 
ancient memorials of the same kind.' This avowal of his 
intention to publish did not conciliate Swift. Curll next 
published, in 1736, a couple of letters to Swift, and Pope 
took advantage of this publication (perhaps he had indi- 
rectly supplied Curll with copies) to urge upon Swift the 
insecurity of the letters in his keeping. Swift ignored 
the request, and his letters about this time began to show 
that his memory was failing, and his intellect growing 
weak. 

Pope now applied to their common friend, Lord Orrery. 
Orrery was the dull member of a family eminent for its 
talents. His father had left a valuable library to Christ 
Church, ostensibly because the son was not capable of 
profiting by books, though a less creditable reason has 

' These expressions come from two letters of Pope to Lord Orrery 
in March, 1737, and may not accurately reproduce his statements to 
Swift ; but they probably represent approximately what he had 
said. 



148 rOPE. [chap. 

been assigned.' The son, eager to wipe oS the imputa- 
tion, specially affected the society of wits, and was elab- 
orately polite both to Swift and Pope. Pope now got 
Orrery to intercede with Swift, urging that the letters 
were no longer safe in the custody of a failing old man. 
Orrery succeeded, and brought the letters in a sealed 
packet to Pope in the summer of 1737. Swift, it must 
be added, had an impression that there was a gap of six 
years in the collection ; he became confused as to what 
had or had not been sent, and had a vague belief in a 
"great collection" of letters "placed in some very safe 
hand."* Pope, being thus in possession of the whole 
correspondence, proceeded to perform a manoeuvre re- 
sembling those already employed in the case of the 
Dunciad and of the P. T. letters. He printed the cor- 
respondence clandestinely. He then sent the printed 
volume to Swift, accompanied by an anonymous letter. 
This letter purported to come from some persons wlio, 
from admiration of Swift's private and public virtues, 
had resolved to preserve letters so creditable to him, and 
had accordingly put them in type. They suggested that 
the volume would be suppressed if it fell into the hands 
of Bolingbroke and Pope (a most audacious suggestion !), 
and intimated that Swift should himself publish it. No 
other copy, they said, was in existence. Poor Swift fell 
at once into the trap. lie ought, of course, to have con- 
sulted Pope or Bolingbroke, and would probably have 
done so had his mind been sound. Seeing, liowever, a 
volume already printed, he might naturally suppose that, 
in spite of the anonymous assurance, it was already too 

' It is said tliat tlie son objected to allow his wife to meet his 
father's mistress. 

" See Elwin's edition of Pope's Correspondence, iii., 399, note. 



Ti.] COERESPONDENCE. 149 

late to stop the publication. At any rate, he at once sent 
it to his publisher, Faulkner, and desired him to bring it 
out at once. Swift was in that most melancholy state in 
which a man's friends perceive him to be incompetent to 
manage his affairs, and are yet not able to use actual re- 
straint. Mrs. Whiteway, the sensible and affectionate 
cousin who took care of him at this time, did her best 
to protest against the publication, but in vain. Swift in- 
sisted. So far Pope's device was successful. The printed 
letters had been placed in the hands of his bookseller by 
Swift himself, and publication was apparently secured. 
But Pope had still the same problem as in the previ- 
ous case. Though he had talked of erecting a monu- 
ment to Swift and himself, he was anxious that the mon- 
ument should apparently be erected by some one else. 
His vanity could only be satisfied by the appearance that 
the publication was forced upon him. lie had, therefore, 
to dissociate himself from the publication by some protest 
at once emphatic and ineffectual ; and, consequently, to 
explain the means by which the letters had been surrep- 
titiously obtained. 

The first aim was unexpectedly difficult. Faulkner 
turned out to be an honest bookseller. Instead of shar- 
ing Curll's rapacity, he consented, at Mrs. "Whiteway's re- 
quest, to wait until Pope had an opportunity of express- 
ing his wishes. Pope, if he consented, could no longer 
complain ; if he dissented, Faulkner Avould suppress the 
letters. In this dilemma, Pope first wrote to Faulkner 
to refuse permission, and at the same time took care that 
his letter should be delayed for a month. lie hoped that 
Faulkner would lose patience, and publish. But Faulk- 
ner, with provoking civility, stopped the press as soon as 
he heard of Pope's objection. Pope hereupon discovered 



150 POPE. [chap. 

tliat the letters were certain to be published, as they were 
already printed, and doubtless by some mysterious " con- 
federacy of people " in London. All he could wish was 
to revise them before appearance. Meanwhile he begged 
Lord Orrery to inspect the book, and say what he thought 
of it. " Guess in what a situation I must be," exclaimed 
this sincere and modest person, " not to be able to see 
what all the world is to read as mine !" Orrery was quite 
as provoking as Faulkner. He got the book ffom Faulk- 
ner, read it, and instead of begging Pope not to deprive 
the world of so delightful a treat, said, with dull integ- 
rity, that he thought the collection " unworthy to be pub- 
lished." Orrery, however, was innocent enough to accept 
Pope's suggestion, that letters which had once got into 
such hands would certainly come out sooner or later. 
After some more haggling. Pope ultimately decided to 
take this ground. JIq would, he said, have nothing to 
do with the letters ; they would come out in any case ; 
their appearance would jilease the Dean, and he (Pope) 
would stand clear of all responsibility. He tried, indeed, 
to get Faulkner to prefix a statement tending to fix the 
whole transaction upon Swift; but the bookseller de- 
clined, and the letters ultimately came out with a sim- 
ple statement that they were a reprint. 

Pope had thus virtually sanctioned the publication. 
He was not the less emphatic in complaining of it to 
his friends. To Orrery, who knew the facts, he repre- 
sented the printed copy sent to Swift as a proof that 
the letters were beyond his power; and to others, such 
as his friend Allen, he kept silence as to this copy alto- 
gether ; and gave them to understand that poor Swift — 
or some member of Swift's family — was the prime mover 
in the business. His mystification had, as before, driven 



VI.] CORRESPONDENCE. 151 

liim into perplexities upon -wliicli he had never calculated. 
In fact, it was still more difficult here than in the previous 
case to account for the original misappropriation of the 
letters. Who could the thief have been ? Orrery, as we 
have seen, had himself taken a packet of letters to Pope, 
which would be of course the letters from Pope to Swift. 
The packet being sealed, Orrery did not know the con- 
tents, and Pope asserted that he had burnt it almost as 
soon as received. It was, however, true that Swift had 
been in the habit of showing the originals to his friends, 
and some might possibly have been stolen or copied by 
designing people. But this would not account for the 
publication of Swift's letters to Pope, Avhich had never 
been out of Pope's possession. As he had certainly been 
in possession of the other letters, it was easiest, even for 
himself, to suppose that some of his own servants were 
the guilty persons ; his own honour being, of course, be- 
yond question. 

To meet these difficulties. Pope made great use of some 
stray phrases dropped by Swift in the decline of his mem- 
ory, and set up a story of his having himself returned some 
letters to Swift, of which important fact all traces had 
disappeared. One characteristic device will be a suffi- 
cient specimen. Swift wrote that a great collection of 
" my letters to you " is somewhere " in a safe hand." He 
meant, of course, " a collection of your letters to me " — 
the only letters of Avhicli he could know anything. Ob- 
serving the slip of the pen, he altered the phrase by writ- 
ing the correct words above the line. It now stood — 

letters to „ Pope laid great stress upon this, in- 
my you." i & i ' 

terprcting it to mean that the "great collection" included 

letters from each correspondent to the other — the fact be- 



152 POPE. [chap. 

ing that Swift had only the letters from Pope to himself. 
The omission of an erasure (whether by Swift or Pope) 
caused the whole ineaning to be altered. As the great 
difficulty was to explain the publication of Swift's letters 
to Pope, this change supplied a very important link in the 
evidence. It implied that Swift had been at some time in 
possession of the letters in question, and had trusted them 
to some one supposed to be safe. The whole paragraph, 
meanwhile, appears, from the unimpeachable evidence of 
Mrs. Whitevvay, to have involved one of the illusions of 
memory, for which he (Swift) apologizes in the letter from 
which this is extracted. By insisting upon this passage, 
and upon certain other letters dexterously confounded 
with those published. Pope succeeded in raising dust 
enough to blind Lord Orrery's not very piercing intelli- 
gence. The inference which he desired to suggest was 
that some persons in Swift's family had obtained posses- 
sion of the letters. Mrs. Whiteway, indeed, met the sug- 
gestion so clearly, and gave such good reasons for assign- 
ing Twickenham as the probable centre of the plot, that 
she must have suspected the truth. Pope did not venture 
to assail her publicly, though he continued to talk of treach- 
ery or evil influence. 

To accuse innocent people of a crime which you know 
yourself to have committed is bad enough. It is, perhaps, 
even baser to lay a trap for a friend, and reproach him for 
falling into it. Swift had denied the publication of the 
letters, and Pope would have had some grounds of com- 
plaint had he not been aware of the failure of Swift's 
mind, and had he not been himself the tempter. His po- 
sition, however, forced him to blame his friend. It was a 
necessary part of his case to impute at least a breach of 
confidence to his victim. He therefore took the attitude 



Ti.] CORRESPONDENCE. 153 

— it must, one liopes, luave cost liim a blush — of one who 
is seriously aggrieved, but who is generously anxious to 
shield a friend in consideration of his known infirmity. 
He is forced, in sorrow, to admit that Swift has erred, but 
he will not allow himself to be annoyed. The most humil- 
iating words ever written by a man not utterly vile, must 
have been those which Pope set down in a letter to Nugent, 
after giving his own version of the case : " I think I can 
make no reflections upon this strange incident but wliat 
are truly melancholy, and humble the pride of human 
nature. That the greatest of geniuses, though prudence 
may have been the companion of wit (which is very rare) 
for their whole lives past, may have nothing left them but 
their vanity. No decay of body is half so miserable." 
The most audacious hypocrite of fiction pales beside this. 
Pope, condescending to the meanest complication of lies to 
justify a paltry vanity, taking advantage of his old friend's 
dotage to trick him into complicity, then giving a false ac- 
count of his error, and finally moralizing, with all the airs 
of philosophic charity, and taking credit for his generosity, 
is altogether a picture to set fiction at defiance. 

I must add a remark not so edifying. Pope went down 
to his grave soon afterwards, without exciting suspicion 
except among two or thi'ce people intimately concerned. 
A whisper of doubt was soon hushed. Even the biogra- 
phers who were on the track of his former deception did 
not suspect this similar iniquity. The last of them, Mr. 
Carruthers, writing in 1857, observes upon the pain given 
to Pope by the treachery of Swift — a treachery of course 
palliated by Swift's failure of mind. At last Mr. Dilke 
discovered the truth, which has been placed beyond doubt 
by the still later discovery of the letters to Orrery. The 
moral is, apparently, that it is better to cheat a respectable 



154 POPE. [chap. 

man tlian a rogue ; for the respectable tacitly form a so- 
ciety for mutual support of character, whilst the open 
rogue will be only too glad to show that you are even such 
an one as himself. 

It was not probable that letters thus published should 
be printed with sci'upulous accuracy. Pope, indeed, can 
scarcely have attempted to conceal the fact that they had 
been a good deal altered. And so long as the letters were 
regarded merely as literary compositions, the practice was 
at least pardonable. But Pope went further; and the full 
extent of his audacious changes was not seen until Mr. 
Dilke became possessed of the Caryll correspondence. On 
comparing the copies preserved by Caryll with the letters 
published by Pope, it became evident that Pope had re- 
garded these letters as so much raw material, which he 
might carve into shape at pleasure, and with such altera- 
tions of date and address as might be convenient, to the 
confusion of all biographers and editors ignorant of his 
peculiar method of editing. The details of these very dis- 
graceful falsifications have been fully described by Mr. 
Ehvin,* but I turn gladly from this lamentable narrative to 
say something of the literary value of the correspondence. 
Every critic has made the obvious remark that Pope's 
letters are artificial and self-conscious. Pope claimed the 
opposite merit. "It is many years ago," he says to Swift 
in 1729, "since I wrote as a wit." He smiles to think 
" how Curll would be bit were our epistles to fall into his 
hands, and how gloriously they would fall short of every in- 
genious reader's anticipations." Warburton adds in a note 
that Pope used to " value himself upon this particular." 
It is indeed true that Pope had dropped the boyish affecta- 
tion of his letters to Wycherley and Cromwell. But such 

' Pope's Works, vol. i. p. cxxi. 



VI.] CORRESPONDENCE. 155 

a statement in the mouth of a man who plotted to secure 
Curll's pubheation of his letters, with devices elaborate 
enough to make the reputation of an unscrupulous diplo- 
matist, is of course only one more example of the super- 
lative degree of affectation, the affectation of being unaf- 
fected. We should be, indeed, disappointed were we to 
expect in Pope's letters what we find in the best specimens 
of the art: the charm which belongs to a simple outpour- 
ing of friendly feeling in private intercourse; the sweet 
playfulness of Cowper, or the grave humour of Gray, or 
even the sparkle and brilliance of Walpole's admirable let- 
ters. Though Walpole had an eye to posterity, and has 
his own mode of affectation, he is for the moment intent 
on amusing, and is free from the most annoying blemish 
in Pope's writing, the resolution to appear always in full 
dress, and to mount as often as possible tipon the stilts of 
moral self-approbation. All this is obvious to the hasty 
reader; and yet I must confess my own conviction that 
there is scarcely a more interesting volume in the language 
than that which contains the correspondence of Swift, 
Bolingbroke, and Pope. To enjoy it, indeed, we must not 
expect to be in sympathy with the writers. Rather we 
must adopt the mental attitude of spectators of a scene of 
high comedy — the comedy which is dashed with satire 
and has a tragical side to it. We are behind the scenes 
in Vanity Fair, and listening to the talk of three of its 
most famous performers, doubting whether they most de- 
ceive each other, or the public or themselves. The secret 
is an open one for us, now that the illusion which per- 
plexed contemporaries has worn itself threadbare. 

The most impressive letters are undoubtedly those of 
Swift — the stern, sad humourist, frowning upon the world 
which has rejected him, and covering his wrath with an 



156 POPE. [chap. 

affectation, not of fine sentiment, but of misanthropy, 'A 
soured man prefers to turn liis worst side outwards. Tlierc 
are phrases in liis letters which brand themselves upon tlic 
memory like those of no other man ; and we are softened 
into pity as the strong mind is seen gradually sinking into 
decay. The two other sharers in the colloquy are in ef- 
fective contrast. We sec through Bolingbroke's magnifi- 
cent self-deceit; the flowing manners of the statesman 
who, though the game is lost, is longing for a favourable 
turn of the card, but still affects to solace himself with 
philosophy, and wraps himself in dignified reflections upon 
the blessings of retirement, contrast with Swift's down- 
right avowal of indignant scorn for himself and mankind. 
And yet we have a sense of the man's amazing cleverness, 
and regret that he has no chance of trying one more fall 
with his antagonists in the open arena. Pope's affectation 
is perhaps the most transparent and the most gratuitous. 
His career had been pre-eminently successful ; his talents 
had found their natural outlet; and he had only to be 
what he apparently persuaded himself that he was, to be 
happy in spite of illness. He is constantly flourishing his 
admirable moral sense in our faces, dilating upon his sim- 
plicity, modesty, fidelity to his friends, indifference to the 
charms of fame, till avc are almost convinced that he has 
imposed upon himself. By some strange piece of leger- 
demain he must surely have succeeded in regarding even 
his deliberate artifices, with the astonishing masses of 
hypocritical falsehoods which they entailed, as in some 
way legitimate weapons against a world full of piratical 
Curlls and deep laid plots. And, indeed, with all his de 
linquencies, and with all his affectations, there are mo- 
ments in which we forget to preserve the correct tone of 
moral indignation. Every now and then genuine feeling 



VI.] CORRESPONDENCE. 157 

I 

seems to come to the surface. For a time tlie superin- 
cumbent masses of hypocrisy vanish. In speaking of his 
mother or his pursuits he forgets to wear his maslv. He 
feels a genuine enthusiasm about his friends ; he believes 
with almost pathetic earnestness in the amazing talents of 
Bolingbroke, and the patriotic devotion of the younger 
men who are rising up to overthrow the corruptions of 
Walpole ; he takes the affectation of his friends as serious- 
ly as a simple-minded man who has never fairly realized 
the possibility of deliberate hypocrisy ; and he utters sen- 
timents about human life and its objects which, if a little 
tainted with commonplace, have yet a certain ring of sin- 
cerity, and, as we may believe, were really sincere for the 
time. At such moments we seem to sec the man behind 
the veil — the really loveable nature which could know as 
well as simulate feeling. And, indeed, it is this quality 
which makes Pope endurable. He was — if we must speak 
bluntly — a liar and a hypocrite ; but the foundation of his 
character was not selfish or grovelling. On the contrary, no 
man could be more warmly affectionate or more exquisitely 
sensitive to many noble emotions. The misfortune was that 
his constitutional infirmities, acted upon by unfavourable 
conditions, developed his craving for applause and his fear 
of censure, till certain morbid tendencies in him assumed 
proportions which, compared to the same weaknesses in 
ordinary mankind, are as the growth of plants in a tropical 
forest to their stunted representatives in the North. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE ESSAY ON MAN. 



It is a relief to turn from this miserable record of Pope's 
petty or malicious deceptions to the history Of liis legiti- 
mate career. I go back to the period when he was still 
in full power. Having finished the Dtindad, he was soon 
employed on a more ambitious task. Pope resembled one 
of the inferior bodies of the solar system, whose orbit is 
dependent upon that of some more massive planet ; and 
having been a satellite of Swift, he was now swept into 
the train of the more imposing Bolingbroke. He had 
been originally introduced to Bolingbroke by Swift, but 
had probably seen little "of the brilliant minister who, in 
the first years of their acquaintance, had too many occupa- 
tions to give much time to the rising poet, Bolingbroke, 
howeVer, had been suffering a long eclipse, whilst Pope 
was gathering fresh splendour. In his exile, Bolingbroke, 
though never really weaned from political ambition, had 
amused himself with superficial philosophical studies. In 
political life it was his special glory to extemporize states- 
manship without sacrificing pleasure. He could be at once 
the most reckless of rakes and the leading spirit in the 
Cabinet or the House of Commons. He seems to have 
thought that philosophical eminence was obtainable in the 
same off-hand fashion, and that a brilliant style would jus- 



CHAP. VII.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. 159 

tify a man in laying down the law to metaphysicians as 
well as to diplomatists and politicians. His philosophical 
writings are equally superficial and arrogant, though they 
show here and there the practised debater's power of mak- 
ing a good point against his antagonist without really 
grasping the real problems at issue. 

Bolingbroke received a pardon in 1723, and returned to 
England, crossing Atterbury, who had just been convicted 
of treasonable practices. In 1725 Bolingbroke settled at 
Dawley, near Uxbridge, and for the next ten years he was 
alternately amusing himself in playing the retired philoso- 
pher, and endeavouring, with more serious purpose, to ani- 
mate the opposition to Walpole. Pope, who was his fre- 
quent guest, sympathized with his schemes, and was com- 
pletely dazzled by his eminence. He spoke of him with 
bated breath, as a being almost superior to humanity. 
" It looks," said Pope once, " as if that great man had 
been placed here by mistake. When the comet appeared 
a month or two ago," he added, " I sometimes fancied that 
it might be come to carry him home, as a coach comes to 
one's door for other visitors." Of all the graceful compli- 
ments in Pope's poetry, none are moi'e ardent or more 
obviously sincere than those addressed to this "guide, phi- 
losopher, and friend." He delighted to bask in the sun- 
shine of the great man's presence. Writing to Swift in 
1728, he (Pope) says that he is holding the pen "for my 
Lord Bolingbroke," who is reading your letter between 
two hay-cocks, with his attention occasionally distracted by 
a threatening shower. Bolingbroke is acting the temper- 
ate recluse, having nothing for dinner but mutton-broth, 
beans and bacon, and a barn-door fowl. Whilst his lord- 
ship is running after a cart. Pope snatches a moment to 
tell how the day before this noble farmer had engaged a 



160 POPE. [chap. 

painter for 200^. to give the correct agricultural air to his 
country hall by ornamenting it with trophies of spades, 
rakes, and prongs. Pope saw that the zeal for retirement 
Avas not free from affectation, but he sat at the teacher's 
feet with profound belief in the value of the lessons which 
flowed from his lips. 

The connexion was to bear remarkable fruit. Under 
the direction of Bolingbroke, Pope resolved to compose a 
great philosophical poem. " Does Pope talk to you," says 
Bolingbroke to Swift in 1731, "of the noble work which, 
at my instigation, he has begun in such a manner that he 
must be convinced by this time I judged better of his tal- 
ents than he did ?" And Bolingbroke proceeds to de- 
scribe the Esscnj on Man^ of which it seems that three 
(out of four) epistles were now finished. The first of 
these epistles appeared in 1733. Pope, being apparently 
nervous on his first appearance as a pliilosopher, withheld 
his name. The other parts followed in the course of 
1733 and 1734, and the authorship was soon avowed. 
The Essay on Man is Pope's most ambitious performance, 
and the one by which he was best known beyond his own 
country. It has been frequently translated ; it was imi- 
tated both in France and Germany, and provoked a con- 
troversy, not like others in Pope's history of the purely 
personal kind. 

The Ussay on Man professes to be a theodicy. Pope, 
■with an echo of the Miltonic phrase, proposes to 

" Vindicate the ways of God to man." 

He is thus attempting the greatest task to which poet 
or philosopher can devote himself — the exhibition of an 
organic and harmonious view of the universe. In a time 
when men's minds are dominated by a definite religious 



VII.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. 161 

creed, the poet may hope to acliieve success in such an 
undertaking without departing from his legitimate meth- 
od. His vision pierces to the world hidden from our 
senses, and realizes in the transitory present a scene in the 
slow development of a divine drama. To make us share 
his vision is to give his justification of Providence. 
When Milton told the story of the war in heaven and the 
fall of man, he gave implicitly his theory of the true rela- 
tions of man to his Creator, but the abstract doctrine was 
clothed in the flesh and blood of a concrete mythology. 

In Pope's day the traditional belief had lost its hold 
upon men's minds too completely to be used for imagina- 
tive purposes. The story of Adam and Eve would itself 
require to be justified or to be rationalized into thin alle- 
gory. Nothing was left possessed of any vitality but a 
bare skeleton of abstract theology dependent upon argu- 
ment instead of tradition, and which might use or might 
dispense with a Christian phraseology. Its deity was not 
a historical personage, but the name of a metaphysical 
conception. For a revelation was substituted a demon- 
stration. To vindicate Providence meant no longer to 
stimulate imagination by a pure and sublime rendering of 
accepted truths, but to solve certain philosophical prob- 
lems, and especially the grand difficulty of reconciling the 
existence of evil with divine omnipotence and benevolence. 

Pope might conceivably have written a really great 
poem on these terms, though deprived of the concrete im- 
agery of a Dante or a Milton. If he had fairly grasped 
some definite conception of the universe, whether panthe- 
istic or atheistic, optimist or pessimist, proclaiming a solu- 
tion of the mystery, or declaring all solutions to be impos- 
sible, he might have given forcible expression to the cor- 
responding emotions. He might have uttered the melan- 



1C2 POPE. [chap. 

clioly resignation and the confident hope incited in different 
minds by a contemplation of the mysterious world. He 
might again conceivably have written an interesting work, 
thougli it would hardly have been a poem — if he had versi- 
fied the arguments by which a coherent theory might be 
supported. Unluckily, he was quite unqualified for either 
undertaking, and, at the same time, he more or less aimed 
at both. Anything like sustained reasoning was beyond 
his reach. Pope felt and thought by shocks and electric 
flashes. He could only obtain a continuous effect when 
working clearly upon lines already provided for him, or 
simulate one by fitting together fragments struck out at 
intervals. The defect was aggravated or caused by the 
physical infirmities which put sustained intellectual labour 
out of the question. The laborious and patient medita- 
tion which brings a converging series of arguments to bear 
upon a single point was to him as impossible as the pow- 
er of devising an elaborate strategical combination to a 
dashing Prince Rupert. \The reasonings in the Essay are 
confused, contradictory, and often childish. He was equal- 
ly far from having assimilated any definite system of 
thought. Brought up as a Catholic, he had gradually 
swung into vague deistic belief. But he had never stud- 
ied any philosophy or theology whatever, and he accepts 
in perfect unconsciousness fragments of the most hetero- 
geneous systems. 

Swift, in verses from which I have already quoted, de- 
scribes his method of composition, which is characteristic 
of Pope's habits of work. 

" Now backs of letters, though design'd 
For those who more will need 'em, 
Are fiU'd with hints and interlined, 
Himself can scarcely read 'em. 



VII.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. 163 

" Each atom by some other struck 
All turns and motions tries ; 
Till in a lump together stuck, 
Behold a poem rise !" 

It was strange enough that any poem should arise by 
such means ; but it would have been miraculous if a poem 
so constructed had been at once a demonstration and an 
exposition of a harmonious philosophical system. The 
confession which he made to Warburton will be a suffi- 
cient indication of his qualifications as a student. He 
says (in 1739) that he never in his life read a line of 
Leibnitz, nor knew, till he found it in a confutation of his 
Essaij^ that there was such a term as pre-established har- 
mony. That is almost as if a modern reconciler of faith 
and science were to say that he had never read a line of 
Mr. Darwin, or heard of such a phrase as the struggle for 
existence. It was to pronounce himself absolutely dis- 
qualified to speak as a philosopher. 

How, then, could Pope obtain even an appearance of suc- 
cess? The problem should puzzle no one at the present 
day. Every smart essayist knows how to settle the most 
abstruse metaphysical puzzles after studies limited to the 
pages of a monthly magazine ; and Pope was much in 
the state of mind of such extemporizing philosophers. 
He had dipped into the books which everybody read ; 
Locke's Essay, and Shaftesbury's Characteristics, and Wol- 
laston's Religion of Nature, and Clarke on the Attri- 
butes, and Archbishop King on the Origin of Evil, had 
probably amused his spare moments. They were all, we 
may suppose, in Bolingbroke's library ; and if that pass- 
ing shower commemorated in Pope's letter drove them 
back to the house, Bolingbroke might discourse from the 
page which happened to be open, and Pope would try to 



164 POPE. [chap. 

versify it on the back of an envelope.* Nor must we 
forgetj'like some of his commentators, that after all Pope 
was an exceedingly clever man. His rapidly perceptive 
mind was fully qualified to imbibe the crude versions of 
philosophic theories which float upon the surface of ordi- 
nary talk, and are not always so inferior to their proto- 
types in philosophic qualities as philosophers would have 
us believe. He could by snatches seize with admirable 
quickness the general spirit of a doctrine, though unable 
to sustain himself at a high Intellectual level for any 
length of time. He was ready with abundance of poet-* 
ical illustrations, not, perhaps, very closely adapted to the 
logic, but capable of being elaborated into effective pas- 
sages ; and, finally, Pope had always a certain number of 
more or less appropriate commonplaces or renderings into 
verse of some passages which had struck him in Pascal 
or Rochefoucauld, or Bacon, all of them favourite authors, 
and which could be wrought into the structure at a slight 
cost of coherence. By such means he could put togeth- 
er a poem, which was certainly not an organic whole, but 
which might contain many striking sayings and passages 
of great rhetorical effect. 

The logical framework was, we may guess, supplied 
mainly by Bolingbrokc. Bathurst told Warton that Bo- 
lingbroke had given Pope the essay in prose, and that 
Pope had only turned it into verse ; and Mallet — a friend 
of both — is said to have seen the very manuscript from 
which Pope worked. Johnson, on hearing this from Bos- 
well, remarked that it must be an overstatement. Pope 
might have had from Bolingbroke the " philosophical 
stamina" of the essay, but he must, at least, have con- 

' " No letter with an envelope could give him more delight," says 
Swift. 



VII.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. 165 

tributed the " poetical imagery," and have had more in- 
dependent power than the story implied. It is, indeed, 
impossible accurately to fix the relations of the teacher 
and his disciple. Pope acknowledged in the strongest 
possible terms his dependence upon Bolingbroke, and 
Bolingbroke claims with equal distinctness the position 
of instigator and inspirer. His more elaborate philo- 
sophical works are in the form of letters to Pope, and 
profess to be a redaction of the conversations which they 
had had together. These were not written till after the 
Essay on Mem; but a series of fragments appear to rep- 
resent what he actually set down for Pope's guidance. 
They are professedly addressed to Pope. " I write," he 
says (fragment 65), " to you and for you, and you would 
think yourself little obliged to me if I took the pains of 
explaining in prose what you would not think it necessa- 
ry to explain in verse " — that is, the free-will puzzle. The 
manuscripts seen by Mallet may probably have been a com- 
monplace book in which Bolingbroke had set down some 
of these fragments, by way of instructing Pope, and pre- 
paring for his own more systematic work. No reader of 
the fragments can, I think, doubt as to the immediate 
source of Pope's inspiration. Most of the ideas ex- 
pressed were the common property of many contempo- 
rary writers, but Pope accepts the particular modification 
presented by Bolingbroke.' Pope's manipulation of these 
materials causes much of the Essay on Man to resemble 
(as Mr. Pattison puts it) an exquisite mosaic work. A 
detailed examination of his mode of transmutation would 

' It would be out of place to discuss this in detail ; but I may say 
that Pope's crude theory of the state of nature, his psychology as to 
reason and instinct, and self-love, and his doctrine of the scale of 
beings, all seem to have the specific Bolingbroke stamp. 



ICG POPE. [chap. 

be a curious stud}' in the technical secrets of literary exe- 
cution. A specimen or two will sufficiently indicate the 
general character of Pope's method of constructing his 
essay. 

The forty-third fragment of Bolingbroke is virtually a 
prose version of much of Pope's poetry. A few phrases 
will exhibit the relation : — 

" Through worlds unnumber'd, though the God be known, 
'Tis ours to trace Him only in our own. 
He who through vast immensity can pierce, 
See worlds on worlds compose one universe, 
Observe how system into system runs, 
What other planets circle other suns, 
What varied being peoples every star, 
May tell why Heaven has made us what we are. 
But of this frame, the bearings and the ties, 
The strong connexions, nice dependencies. 
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul 
Looked through, or can a part contain the whole ?" 

" The universe," I quote only a few phrases from Bo- 
lingbroke, " is an immense aggregate of systems. Every 
one of these, ifive may judge by our oi^;??,, contains several ; 
and every one of these again, if ive may judge by our own, 
is made up of a multitude of different modes of being, an- 
imated and inanimated, thinking and unthinking . , . but all 
concurring in one common system. . . . Just so it is with 
respect to the various systems and systems of systems that 
compose the universe. As distant as they are, and as dif- 
ferent as we may imagine them to be, they are all tied 
together by relations and connexions, gradations, and de- 
pendencies.'''' The verbal coincidence is here as marked as 
the coincidence in argument. Warton refers to an elo- 
quent passage in Shaftesbury, which contains a similar 



VII.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. 16T 

thought ; but one can hardly doubt that Bolingbroke was 
in this case the immediate source. A quaint passage a 
little farther on, in which Pope represents man as com- 
plaining because he has not " the strength. of bulls or the 
fur of bears," may be traced with equal plausibility to 
Shaftesbury or to Sir Thomas Browne ; but I have not 
noticed it in Bolingbroke. 

One more passage will be sufficient. Pope asks whether 
we are to demand the suspension of laws of nature when- 
ever they might produce a mischievous result ? Is Etna 
to cease an eruption to spare a sage, or should " new mo- 
tions be impressed upon sea and air " for the advantage 
of blameless Bethel ? 

" When the loose mountain trembles from on high, 
Shall gravitation cease, if you go by ? 
Or some old temple, nodding to its fall. 
For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall ?" 

Chartres is Pope's typical villain. This is a terse ver- 
sion, with concrete cases, of Bolingbroke's vaguer gener- 
alities. " The laws of gravitation," he says, " must some- 
times be suspended (if special Providence be admitted), 
and sometimes their effect must be precipitated. The 
tottering edifice must be kept miraculously from falling, 
whilst innocent men lived in it or passed under it, and the 
fall of it must be as miraculously determined to crush the 
guilty inhabitant or passenger." Here, again, we have the 
alternative of Wollaston, who uses a similar illustration, 
and in one phrase comes nearer to Pope. He speaks of 
" new motions being impressed upon the atmosphere." 
We may suppose that the two friends had been dipping 
into Wollaston together. Elsewhere Pope seems to have 
stolen for himself. In the beginning of the second epis- 



168 POPE. [chap. 

tie, Pope, in describing man as " the gloiy, jest, and rid- 
dle of the world," is simply versifying Pascal ; and a little 
farther on, when he speaks of reason as the wind and pas- 
sion as the gale on life's vast ocean, he is adapting his 
comparison from Locke's treatise on government. 

If all such cases were adduced, we should have nearly 
picked the argumentative part of the essay to pieces ; but 
Bolingbroke supplies throughout the most characteristic 
element. The fragments cohere by external cement, not 
by an internal unity of thought; and Pope too often de- 
scends to the level of mere satire, or indulges in a quaint 
conceit or palpable sophistry. Yet it would be very un- 
just to ignore the high qualities which are to be found 
in this incongruous whole. The style is often admirable. 
When Pope is at his best every word tells. His precision 
and firmness of touch enables him to get the greatest pos- 
sible meaning into a narrow compass. He uses only one 
epithet, but it is the right one, and never boggles and 
patches, or, in his own phrase, " blunders round about a 
meaning." Warton gives, as a specimen of this power, the 
lines : — 

" But errs not nature from this gracious end 
From burning suns when livid deaths descend, 
When earthquakes swallow or when tempests sweep 
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep ?" 

And Mr. Pattison reinforces the criticism by quoting Vol- 
taire's feeble imitation : — 

" Quand des vents du midi les funestes haleines 
De semence de mort ont inonde uos plaines, 
Direz-vous que jamais le ciel en son courroux 
Ne laissa la santc sejourner parmi nous?" 

It is true that, in the effort to be compressed. Pope has 
here and there cut to the quick and suppressed essential 



VII.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. 169 

parts of speccli, till tlie lines can only be construed by our 
independent knowledge of their meaning. The famous 

line — 

" Man never is but always to be blest," 

is an example of defective construction, though his lan- 
guage is often tortured by more elliptical phrases.' This 
power of charging lines with great fulness of meaning 
enables Pope to soar for brief periods into genuine and 
impressive poetry. Whatever his philosophical weakness 
and his moral obliquity, he is often moved by genuine 
emotion. He has a vein of generous sympathy for human 
sufferings and of righteous indignation against bigots, and 
if he only half understands his own optimism, that " what- 
ever is is right," the vision, rather poetical than philosoph- 
ical, of a harmonious universe lifts him at times into a 
region loftier than that of frigid and pedantic platitude. 
The most popular passages were certain purple patches, 
not arising very spontaneously or with much relevance, 
but also showing something more than the practised rhet- 
orician. The "poor Indian" in one of the most highly- 
polished paragraphs — 

" Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company," 

intrudes rather at the expense of logic, and is a decidedly 
conventional person. But this passage has a certain glow 

' Perhaps the most curious example, too long for quotation, is a 
passage near the end of the last epistle, in which he sums up his 
moral system by a series of predicates for which it is impossible to 
find any subject. One couplet runs — 

" Never elated whilst one man's depress'd. 
Never dejected whilst another's blest." 
It is impressive, but it is quite impossible to discover by the rules of 
grammatical construction who is to be never elated and depressed. 



170 POPE. [chap. 

of fine humanity, and is touched with real pathos. A fur- 
ther passage or two may sufficiently indicate his higher 
qualities. In the end of the third epistle Pope is discuss- 
ing the origin of government and the state of nature, and 
discussing them in such a way as to show conclusively that 
he does not in the least understand the theories in ques- 
tion or their application. His state of Nature is a sham 
reproduction of the golden age of poets, made to do duty 
in a scientific speculation. A flimsy hypothesis learnt 
from Bolingbroke is not improved when overlaid with 
Pope's conventional ornamentation. The imaginary his- 
tory proceeds to relate the growth of superstition, which 
destroys the primeval innocence ; but why or when does 
not very clearly appear ; yet, though the general theory is 
incoherent, he catches a distinct view of one aspect of the 
question, and expresses a tolerably trite view of the ques- 
tion with singular terseness. Who, be asks, — 

"First taught souls enslaved and realms undone, 
The enormous faith of many made for one?" 

He replies, — 

■" Force first made conquest, and that conquest law ; 
Till Superstition taught the tyrant awe, 
Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid. 
And gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made ; 
She, 'mid the lightning's blaze and thunder's sound, 
When rock'd the mountains and when groan'd the ground, — 
She taught the weak to trust, the proud to pray 
To Power unseen and mightier far than they ; 
She from the rending earth and bursting skies 
Saw gods descend and fiends infernal rise ; 
There fix'd the dreadful, there the blest abodes ; 
Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods ; 
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust. 
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust ; 



VII.] THE ESSAY OX MAX. 171 

Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, 
And, framed like tyrants, tyrants would believe." 

If the test of poetry were the power of expressing a 
theory more closely and pointedly than prose, such writing 
would take a very high place. Some popular philosophers 
would make a sounding chapter out of those sixteen lines. 

The Essay on Man brought Pope into difficulties. The 
central thesis, " whatever is is right," might be understood 
in various senses, and in some sense it would be accepted 
by every theist. But, in Bolingbroke's teaching, it re- 
ceived a heterodox application, and in Pope's imperfect 
version of Bolingbroke the taint was not removed. The 
logical outcome of the rationalistic theory of the time was 
some form of pantheism, and the tendency is still more 
marked in a poetical statement, where it was difficult to 
state the refined distinctions by which the conclusion is 
averted. When theology is regarded as demonstrable by 
reason, the need of a revelation ceases to be obvious. The 
optimistic view, which sees the proof of divine order in 
the vast harmony of the whole visible world, throws into 
the background the darker side of the universe reflected 
in the theological doctrines of human corruption, and the 
consequent need of a future judgment in separation of 
good from evil. I need not inquire whether any optimis- 
tic theory is really tenable ; but the popular version of the 
creed involved the attempt to ignore the evils under which 
all creation groans, and produced in different minds the 
powerful retort of Butler's Analogy, and the biting sar- 
casm of Voltaire's Candide. Pope, accepting the doctrine 
Avithout any perception of these difficulties, unintentional- 
ly fell into sheer pantheism. He was not yielding to the 
logical instinct which carries out a theory to its legitimate 
development ; but obeying the imaginative impulse which 



172 POPE. [chap. 

cannot stop to listen to the usual qualifications and safe- 
guards of the orthodox reasoner. The best passages in 
the essay are those in which he is frankly pantheistic, and 
is swept, like Shaftesbury, into enthusiastic assertion of the 
universal harmony of things. 

" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; 
That changed thro' all and yet in all the same, 
Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame ; 
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, 
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent. 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ; 
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; 
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns. 
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns ; 
To him, no high, no low, no great, no small, 
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all." 

In spite of some awkward phrases (hair and heart is a 
vile antithesis !), the passage is eloquent, but can hardly be 
called orthodox. And it was still worse when Pope un- 
dertook to show that even evil passions and vices were part 
of the harmony ; that " a Borgia and a Catiline " were as 
much a part of the divine order as a plague or an earth- 
quake, and that self-love and lust were essential to social 
welfare. 
n\ Pope's own religious position is characteristic and easi- 
' ny definable. If it is not quite defensible on the strictest 
principl(!s of plain speaking, it is also certain that we could 
not condemn him without condemning many of the best 
and most catholic-spirited of men. The dogmatic system 
in which he had presumably been educated had softened 
under the influence of the cultivated thought of the day. 



Til.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. 173 

Pope, as the member of a persecuted sect, had learnt 
to share that righteous hatred of bigotry which is the hon- 
ourable characteristic of his best contemporaries. He con- 
sidered the persecuting spirit of his own church to be its 
■worst fault, ^ In the early Essay on Criticism he offended 
some of his own sect by a vigorous denunciation of the 
doctrine which promotes persecution by limiting salvation 
to a particular creed. His charitable conviction that a 
divine element is to be found in all creeds, from that of 
the "poor Indian" upwards, animates the highest passages 
in his works. But though he sympathizes with a gener- 
ous toleration, and the specific dogmas of his creed sat 
very loosely on his mind, he did not consider that an open 
secession was necessary or even honourable. He called 
himself a true Catholic, though rather as respectfully sym- 
pathizing with the spirit of Fenelon than as holding to 
any dogmatic system. The most dignified letter that he 
ever wrote was in answer to a suggestion from Atterbury 
(17 17), that he might change his religion upon the death 
of his father. Pope replies that his worldly interests 
would be promoted by such a step ; and, in fact, it can- 
not be doubted that Pope might have had a share in the 
good things then obtainable by successful writers, if he 
had qualified by taking the oaths. But he adds that such 
a change would hurt his mother's feelings, and that he 
was more certain of his duty to promote her happiness 
than of any speculative tenet whatever. He was sure that 
he could mean as well in the religion he now professed as 
in any other ; and that being so, he thought that a change 
even to an equally good religion could not be justified, A 
similar statement appears in a letter to Swift, in 1729. " I 
am of the religion of Erasmus, a Catholic. So I live, so 
* Spence, p. 3G4. 



174 POPE. [chap. 

shall I die, and hope one day to meet you, Bishop Atter- 
bury, the younger Craggs, Dr. Garth, Dean Berkeley, and 
Mr. Hutchison in that place to which God of his infinite 
mercy bring us and everybody." To these Protestants he 
would doubtless have joined the freethinking Bolingbroke. 
At a later period he told Warburton, in less elevated lan- 
guage, that the change of his creed would bring him many 
enemies and do no good to any one. 

Pope could feel nobly and act honourably when his 
morbid vanity did not expose him to some temptation; 
and I think that in this matter his attitude was in every 
way creditable, lie showed, indeed, the prejudice enter- 
tained by many of the rationalist divines for the free- 
thinkers who were a little more outspoken than himself. 
The deist whose creed was varnished with Christian 
phrases was often bitter against the deist who rejected 
the varnish; and Pope put Toland and Tindal into the 
Dunciad as scandalous assailants of all religion. From 
his point of view it was as wicked to attack any creed as 
to regard any creed as exclusively true ; and certainly 
Pope was not disposed to join any party which was hated 
and maligned by the mass of the respectable world. For 
it must be remembered that, in spite of much that has 
been said to the contrary, and in spite of the true ten- 
dency of much so-called orthodoxy, the profession of open 
dissent from Christian doctrine was then regarded with 
extreme disapproval. It might be a fashion, as Butler 
and others declare, to talk infidelity in cultivated circles ; 
but a public promulgation of unbelief was condemned 
as criminal, and worthy only of the Grub-street faction. 
Pope, therefore, was terribly shocked when he found him- 
self accused of heterodoxy. His poem was at once trans- 
lated, and, we are told, spread rapidly in France, where 



VII.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. 175 

Voltaire and many inferior writers were introducing the 
contagion of English freethinking, A solid Swiss pastor 
and professor of philosophy, Jean Pierre Crousaz (1663- 
1750), undertook the task of refutation, and published 
an examination of Pope's philosophy in 173*7 and 1738. 
A serious examination of this bundle of half -digested 
opinions was in itself absurd. Some years afterwards 
(1751) Pope came under a more powerful critic. The 
Berlin Academy of Sciences offered a prize for a similar 
essay, and Lessing published a short tract called Pope ein 
Metaphysiker ! If any one cares to see a demonstration 
that Pope did not understand the system of Leibnitz, and 
that the bubble blown by a great philosopher has more 
apparent cohesion than that of a half-read poet, he may 
find a sufficient statement of the case in Lessing. But 
Lessing sensibly protests from the start against the intru- 
sion of such a work into serious discussion ; and that is 
the only ground which is worth taking in the matter. 

The most remarkable result of the Essay on Man, it 
may be parenthetically noticed, was its effect upon Voltaire. 
In 1751 Voltaire wrote a poem on Natural Law, which 
is a comparatively feeble application of Pope's principles. 
It is addressed to Frederick instead of Bolingbroke, and 
contains a warm eulogy of Pope's philosophy. But a 
few years later the earthquake at Lisbon suggested cer- 
tain doubts to Voltaire as to the completeness of the op- 
timist theory ; and, in some of the most impressive verses 
of the century, he issued an energetic protest against the 
platitudes applied by Pope and his followers to deaden our 
sense of the miseries under which the race suffers. Ver- 
bally, indeed, Voltaire still makes his bow to the optimist 
theory, and the two poems appeared together in 1756 ; but 
his noble outcry against the empty and complacent deduc- 



176 POPE. [chap. 

tions vvliicli it covers, led to his famous controversy with 
Rousseau. The history of this conflict falls beyond my 
subject, and I must be content with this brief reference, 
which proves, amongst other things, the interest created 
by Pope's advocacy of the most characteristic doctrines of 
his time on the minds of the greatest leaders of the revo- 
lutionary movement. 

Meanwhile, however, Crousaz Avas translated into Eng- 
lish, and Pope was terribly alarmed. His " guide, philos- 
opher, and friend" had returned to the Continent (in 
1735), disgusted with his political failure, but was again 
in England from June, 1738, to May, 1739. We know 
not what comfort he may have given to his unlucky dis- 
ciple, but an unexpected champion suddenly arose. Wil- 
liam Warburton (born 1698) was gradually pushing his 
way to success. He had been an attorney's clerk, and had 
not received a university education ; but his multifarious 
reading was making him conspicuous, helped by great en- 
ergy, and by a quality which gave some plausibility to the 
title bestowed on him by Mallet, " The most impudent 
man living." In his humble days he had been intimate 
with Pope's enemies, Concanen and Theobald, and had 
spoken scornfully of Pope, saying, amongst other things, 
that he " borrowed for want of genius," as Addison bor- 
rowed from modesty, and Milton from pride. In 1736 he 
liad published his first important work, the Alliance be- 
tween Church and State ; and in 1738 followed the first in- 
stalment of his principal performance, the Divine Legation. 
During the following years he was the most conspicuous 
theologian of the day, dreaded and hated by his opponents, 
whom he unsparingly bullied, and dominating a small 
clique of abject admirers. He is said to have condemned 
the Essay on Man when it first appeared. He called it a 



VII.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. Ill 

collection of the worst passages of the worst authors, and 
declared that it taught rank atheism. The appearance of 
Crousaz's book suddenly induced him to make a complete 
change of front. He declared that Pope spoke " truth uni- 
formly throughout," and complimented him on his strong 
and delicate reasoning. 

It is idle to seek motives for this proceeding. Warbur- 
ton loved paradoxes, and delighted in brandishing them in 
the most offensive terms. He enjoyed the exercise of his 
own ingenuity, and therefore his ponderous writings, 
though amusing by their audacity and width of reading, 
are absolutely valueless for their ostensible purpose. The 
exposition of Pope (the first part of which appeared in 
December, 1738) is one of his most tiresome performances ; 
nor need any human being at the present day study the 
painful wire-drawings and sophistries by which he tries to 
give logical cohesion and orthodox intention to the Essay 
on Man. 

If Warburton was simply practising his dialectical skill, 
the result was a failure. But if he had an eye to certain 
lower ends, his success surpassed his expectations. Pope 
was in ecstasies. He fell upon Warburton's neck — or 
rather at his feet — and overwhelmed him with professions 
of gratitude. He invited him to Twickenham ; met him 
with compliments which astonished a by-stander, and 
wrote to him in terms of surprising humility. "You un- 
derstand me," he exclaims in his first letter, " as well as I 
do myself ; but you express me much better than I could 
express myself." For the rest of his life Pope adopted 
the same tone. He sheltered himself behind this burly 
defender, and could never praise him enough. He declared 
Mr. Warburton to be the greatest general critic he ever 
knew, and was glad to instal him in the position of cham- 



178 rOPE. [chap. 

pion in ordinary. Warburton was consulted about new 
editions ; annotated Pope's poems ; stood sponsor to the 
last Dunciad, and was assured by bis admiring friend tliat 
the comment would prolong the life of the poetry. Pope 
left all his copyrights to this friend, whilst his MSS. were 
given to Bolingbroke. 

When the University of Oxford proposed to confer an 
honorary degree upon Pope, he declined to receive the 
compliment, because the proposal to confer a smaller hon- 
our upon Warburton had been at the same time thrown 
out by the University. In fact, Pope looked up to War- 
burton with a reverence almost equal to that which he felt 
for Bolingbroke. If such admiration for such an idol was 
rather humiliating, we must remember that Pope was un- 
able to detect the charlatan in the pretentious but really 
vigorous writer; and we may perhaps admit that there is 
something pathetic in Pope's constant eagernees to be sup- 
ported by some sturdier arm. We find the same tendency 
throughout his life. The weak and morbidly sensitive 
nature may be forgiven if its dependence leads to excessive 
veneration. 

Warburton derived advantages from the connexion, the 
prospect of which, we may hope, was not the motive of 
his first advocacy. To be recognized by the most eminent 
man of letters of the day was to receive a kind of certifi- 
cate of excellence, valuable to a man who had not the reg- 
ular university hall-mark. More definite results followed. 
Pope introduced Warburton to Allen, and to Murray, after- 
wards Lord Mansfield. Through Murray he was appointed 
preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and from Allen he derived great- 
er benefits — the hand of his niece and heiress, and an in- 
troduction to Pitt, which gained for him the bishopric of 
Gloucester, 



VII.] THE ESSAY ON MAN. 1Y9 

Pope's allegiance to Bolingbroke was not weakened by 
this new alliance. He sought to bring the two together, 
when Bolingbroke again visited England in 1743. The 
only result was an angry explosion, as, indeed, might have 
been foreseen ; for Bolingbroke was not likely to be well- 
disposed to the clever parson whose dexterous sleight-of- 
hand had transferred Pope to the orthodox camp ; nor was 
it natural that Warburton, the most combative and insult- 
ing of controversialists, should talk on friendly terms to 
one of his natural antagonists — an antagonist, moreover, 
who was not likely to have bishoprics in his gift. The 
quarrel, as we shall see, broke out fiercely over Pope's 
ffrave. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 

Pope liad tried a considerable number of poetical exper- 
iments when the Dunciad appeared, but he had not yet 
discovered in what direction his talents could be most ef- 
ficiently exerted. By-standers are sometimes acuter in de- 
tecting a man's true forte than the performer himself. In 
1722 Atterbury had seen Pope's lines upon Addison, and 
reported that no piece of his writing w'as ever so much 
sought after. " Since you now know," he added, " in 
what direction your strength lies, I hope you will not suf- 
fer that talent to be unemployed." Atterbury seems to 
have been rather fond of giving advice to Pope, and puts 
on a decidedly pedagogic air when writing to him. The 
present suggestion was more likely to fall on willing ears 
than another made shortly before their final separation. 
Atterbury then presented Pope with a Bible, and recom- 
mended him to study its pages. If Pope had taken to 
heart some of St. Paul's exhortations to Christian charity^ 
he would scarcely have published his lines upon Addison, 
and English literature would have lost some of its most 
brilliant pages. 

Satire of the kind represented by those lines was so ob- 
viously adapted to Pope's peculiar talent, that we rather 
wonder at his having taken to it seriously at a compara- 



CHAP. Till.] EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 181 

lively late period, and even then having drifted into it 
by accident rather than by deliberate adoption. He had 
aimed, as has been said, at being a philosophic and didactic 
poet. The Essay on Man formed part of a much larger 
plan, of which two or three fragmentary sketches are given 
by Spence.' Bolingbroke and Pope wrote to Swift in No- 
vember, 1729, about a scheme then in course of execution. 
Bolingbroke declares that Pope is now exerting what was 
eminently and peculiarly his talents above all writers, living 
or dead, without excepting Horace ; whilst Pope explained 
that this was a " system of ethics in the Horatian way." 
The language seems to apply best to the poems afterwards 
called the Ethic Einstles, though at this time Pope, per- 
haps, had not a very clear plan in his head, and was work- 
ing at different parts simultaneously. The Essay on Man, 
his most distinct scheme, was to form the opening book of 
his poem. Three others were to treat of knowledge and 
its limits, of government — ecclesiastical and civil — and of 
morality. The last book itself involved an elaborate plan. 
There were to be three epistles about each cardinal virtue 
— one, for example, upon avarice; another on the contrary 
extreme of prodigality ; and a third upon the judicious 
mean of a moderate use of riches. Pope told Spence that 
lie had dropped the plan chiefly because his third book 
would have provoked every Church on the face of the 
earth, and he did not care for always being in boiling wa- 
ter. The scheme, however, was far too wide and too sys- 
tematic for Pope's powers. His spasmodic energy enabled 
him only to fill up corners of the canvas, and from what 
he did, it is sufficiently evident that his classification would 
have been incoherent and his philosophy unequal to the 
task. Part of his work was used for the fourth book of 

' Spence, pp. 16, 48, 137, 315-. 



182 POPE. [chap. 

the Dunciad, and the remainder corresponds to what are 
now called the Ethic Epistles. These, as they now stand, 
include five poems. One of these has no real connexion 
with the others. It is a poem addressed to Addison, " oc- 
casioned by his dialogMie on medals," written (according to 
Pope) in 1715, and first published in Tickell's edition of 
Addison's works in 1721. The epistle to Burlington on 
taste was afterwards called the Use of Riches^ and append- 
ed to another with the same title, thus filling a place in 
the ethical scheme, though devoted to a very subsidiary 
branch of the subject. It appeared in 1731. The epistle 
" of the use of riches " appeared in 1732; that of the knowl- 
edge and characters of men in 1733 ; and that of the char- 
acters of women in 1735. The last three are all that would 
seem to belong to the wider treatise contemplated ; but 
Pope composed so much in fragments that it is difficult to 
say what bits he might have originally intended for any 
given purpose. 

Another distraction seems to have done more than his 
fear of boiling water to arrest the progress of the elaborate 
plan. Bolingbroke coming one day into his room, took 
up a Horace, and observed that the first satire of the sec- 
ond book would suit Pope's style. Pope translated it in a 
morning or two, and sent it to press almost immediately 
(1733). The poem had a brilliant success. It contained, 
amongst other things, the couplet which provoked his war 
with Lady Mary and Lord Hervey. This, again, led to his 
putting together the epistle to Arbuthnot, which includes 
the bitter attack upon Hervey, as part of a general apologia 
pro vita sua. It was afterwards called the Prologue to the 
Satires. Of his other imitations of Horace, one appeared 
in 1734 (the second satire of the second book), and four 
more (the first and sixth epistles of the first book and the 



VIII.] EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 183 

first and second of the second book) in 1738. Finally, in 
1737, he published two dialogues, first called " 1738," and 
afterwards The Epilogue to the Satires, which are in the 
same vein as the epistle to Arbuthnot. These epistles and 
imitations of Horace, with the so-called prologue and epi- 
logue, took up the greatest part of Pope's energy during 
the years in which his intellect was at its best, and show 
his finest technical qualities. The Essay on Man was on 
hand during the early part of this period, the epistles and 
satires representing a ramification from the same inquiry. 
But the essay shows the weak side of Pope, whilst his 
most remarkable qualities are best represented by these 
subsidiary writings. The reason will be sufiicieutly appar- 
ent after a brief examination, wliicli will also give occasion 
fur saying what still remains to be said in regard to Pope 
as a literary artist. 

The weakness already conspicuous in the Esmy on Man 
mars tlie effect of the Ethic Epistles. His work tends to 
be rather an aggregation than an organic whole. He was 
(if I may borrow a phrase from the philologists) an ag- 
glutinative writer, and composed by sticking together inde- 
pendent fragments. His mode of composition was natural 
to a mind incapable of sustained and continuous thought. 
In the epistles he professes to be working on a plan. The 
first expounds his favourite theory (also treated in the es- 
say) of a " ruling passion." Each man has such a passion, 
if only you can find it, which explains the apparent incon- 
sistency of his conduct. This theory, which has exposed 
liim to a charge of fatalism (especially from people who 
did not very well know what fatalism means), is sufficient- 
ly striking for his purpose ; but it rather turns up at in- 
tervals than really binds the epistle into a whole. But 
the arrangement of his portrait gallery is really unsys- 
9 



184 rOPE. [cuAP. 

tematic; the affectation of system is rather in the way. 
The most striking characters in the essay on women were 
inserted (whenever composed) some time after its first ap- 
pearance, and the construction is too loose to mate any 
interruption of the argument perceptible. The poems 
contain some of Pope's most brilliant bits, but we can 
scarcely remember them as a whole. The characters of 
Wharton and Villiers, of Atossa, of the Man of Ross, and 
Sir Balaam, stand out as brilliant passages which would 
do almost as well in any other setting. In the imitations 
of Horace he is, of course, guided by lines already laid 
down for him ; and he has shown admirable skill in 
translating the substance as well as the words of his au- 
thor by the nearest equivalents. This peculiar mode of 
imitation had been tried by other writers, but in Pope's 
hands it succeeded beyond all precedent. There is so 
much congeniality between Horace and Pope, and the 
social orders of which they were the spokesmen, that he 
can represent his original without giving us any sense of 
constraint. Yet even here he sometimes obscures the 
thread of connexion, and we feel more or less clearly 
that the order of thought is not that which would have 
spontaneously arisen in his own mind. So, for example, 
in the imitation of Horace's first epistle of the first book, 
the references to the Stoical and Epicurean morals imply 
a connexion of ideas to Avhich nothing corresponds in 
Pope's reproduction. Horace is describing a genuine ex- 
perience, while Pope is only putting together a string of 
commonplaces. The most interesting part of these im- 
itations are those in which Pope takes advantage of the 
suggestions in Horace to be thoroughly autobiographical. 
He manages to run his own experience and feelings into 
the moulds provided for him by his predecessor. One 



Till.] EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 185 

of the happiest passages is that in which he turns the 
serious panegyric on Augustus into a bitter irony against 
the other Augustus, whose name was George, and who, 
according to Lord Hervey, was so contrasted with his 
prototype, that whereas personal courage was the one 
weak point of the emperor, it was the one strong point 
of the English king. As soon as Pope has a chance of 
expressing his personal antipathies or (to do him bare 
justice) his personal attachments, his lines begin to glow. 
When he is trying to preach, to be ethical and philosoph- 
ical, he is apt to fall into mouthing, and to lose his place ; 
but when he can forget his stilts, or point his morality by 
some concrete and personal instance, every Avord is alive. 
And it is this which makes the epilogues, and more es- 
pecially the prologue to the satires, his most impressive 
performances. The unity, which is very ill supplied by 
some ostensible philosophical thesis, or even by the lead- 
ing-strings of Horace, is given by his own intense interest 
in himself. The best way of learning to enjoy Pope is to 
get by heart the epistle to Arbuthnot. That epistle is, as 
I have said, his Aj)ologia. In its some 400 lines he has 
managed to compress more of his feelings and thoughts 
than would fill an ordinary autobiography. It is true 
that the epistle requires a commentator. It wants some 
familiarity with the events of Pope's life, and many lines 
convey only a part of their meaning unless we are famil- 
iar not only with the events, but with the characters of 
the persons mentioned. Passages over which we pass 
carelessly at the first reading then come out with won- 
derful freshness, and single phrases throw a sudden light 
upon hidden depths of feeling. It is also true, unluckily, 
that parts of it must be read by the rule of contraries. 
They tell us not what Pope really was, but what he 



186 rOrE. [chap. 

wished others to think liim, and what he probably en- 
deavoured to persuade himself that he was. How far ho 
succeeded in imposing upon himself is indeed a very curi- 
ous question which can never be fully answered. There 
is the strangest mixture of honesty and hypocrisy. Let 
me, he says, live my own, and die so too — 
" (To live and die is all I have to do) 

Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, 

And see what friends and read what books I please !" 

Well, be was independent in his fashion, and we can at 
least believe that he so far believed in himself. But 
when he goes on to say that he "can sleep without a 
poem in his head, 

'Nor know if Dennis be alive or dead,'" 

wc remember his calling up the maid four times a night 
in the dreadful winter of 1740 to save a thought, and the 
features writhing in anguish as he read a hostile pam- 
phlet. Presently he informs us that " he thinks a lie in 
prose or verse the same " — only too much the same ! and 
that " if he pleased, he pleased by manly ways." Alas ! 
for the manliness. And yet again, when he speaks of his 
parents, 

" Unspotted names and venerable long, 
If there be force in virtue or in song," 

can wc doubt that he is speaking from the heart? Wc 
should perhaps like to foi'get that the really exquisite and 
touching lines in which lie speaks of his mother had been 
so carefully elaborated. 

" Me let the tender office long engage 
To rock the cradle of declining age, 
With lenient acts extend a mother's breatli, 
Make languor smiK^, and smooth the bed of death, 



Tin.] EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 187 

Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, 
And keep awhile one parent from the sky !" 

If there are more tender and exquisitely expressed 
lines in the language, I know not where to find them ; and 
yet again I should be glad not to be reminded by a cruel 
commentator that poor Mrs. Pope had been dead for two 
years when they were published, and that even this touch- 
ing effusion has, therefore, a taint of dramatic affectation. 

To me, I confess, it seems most probable, though at first 
sight incredible, that these utterances were thoroughly sin- 
cere for the moment. I fancy that under Pope's elabo- 
rate masks of hypocrisy and mystification there was a heart 
always abnormally sensitive. Unfortunately it was as ca- 
pable of bitter resentment as of warm affection, and 
was always liable to be misled by the suggestions of his 
strangely irritable vanity. And this seems to me to give 
the true key to Pope's poetical as well as to his personal 
characteristics. 

To explain either, we must remember that he was a man 
of impulses ; at one instant a mere incarnate thrill of grat- 
itude or genei'osity, and in the next of spite or jealousy. 
A spasm of wounded vanity would make him for the time 
as mean and selfish as other men are made by a frenzy of 
bodily fear. lie would instinctively snatch at a lie even 
when a moment's reflection would have shown that the 
plain truth would be more convenient, and therefore he 
had to accumulate lie upon lie, each intended to patch up 
some previous blunder. Though nominally the poet of 
reason, he was the very antithesis of the man who is 
reasonable in the highest sense; who is truthful in word 
and deed because his conduct is regulated by harmonious 
and invariable principles. Pope was governed by the in- 
stantaneous feeling. His emotion came in sudden jets 



188 POPE. [chap. 

and guslies, instead of a continuous stream. The same 
peculiarity deprives his poetry of continuous harmony or 
profound unity of conception. His lively sense of form 
and proportion enables him, indeed, to fill up a simple 
framework (generally of borrowed design) with an eye to 
general effect, as in the Rape of the Loch or the first Dun- 
clad. But even there his flight is short ; and when a 
poem should be governed by the evolution of some pro- 
found principle or complex mood of sentiment, he be- 
comes incoherent and perplexed. But, on the other hand, 
he can perceive admirably all that can be seen at a glance 
from a singfe point of view. Though he could not be 
continuous, he could return again and again to the same 
point ; he could polish, correct, eliminate superfluities, and 
compress his meaning more and more closely, till he has 
constructed short passages of imperishable excellence. 
This microscopic attention to fragments sometimes injures 
the connexion, and often involves a mutilation of construc- 
tion. He corrects and prunes too closely. He could, he 
says, in reference to the Essay on Man, put things more 
briefly in verse than in prose ; one reason being that he 
could take liberties of this kind not permitted in prose 
writing. But the injury is compensated by the singular 
terseness and vivacity of his best style. Scarcely any one, 
as is often remarked, has left so large a proportion of 
quotable plirases,' and, indeed, to the present he survives 
chiefly by the current coinage of that kind which bears 
his image and superscription. 

This familiar remark may help us to solve the old prob- 

' To take an obviously uncertain test, I find that in Bartlett's dic- 
tionary of familiar quotations, Sliakspeare fills '70 pages ; Milton, 
23 ; Pope, 18 ; Wordsworth, 16 ; and Byron, 15. The .rest are no- 
where. 



Tin.] EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 189 

lem, Avlietlier Pope was, or rather in wliat sense Le was, 
a poet. Much of his work may be fairly described as 
rhymed prose, differing from prose not in substance or 
tone of feeling, but only in the form of expression. Ev- 
ery poet has an invisible audience, as an orator has a visi- 
ble one, who deserve a great part of the merit of his 
works. Some men may write for the religious or philo- 
sophic recluse, and therefore utter the emotions which 
come to ordinary mortals in the rare moments when the 
music of the spheres, generally drowned by the din of the 
commonplace world, becomes audible to their dull senses. 
Pope, on the other hand, writes for the wits who never 
listen to such strains, and moreover writes for their ordina- 
ry moods. lie aims at giving us the refined and doubly 
distilled essence of the conversation of the statesmen and 
courtiers of his time. The standard of good writing al- 
ways implicitly present to his mind is the fitness of his 
poetry to pass muster when shown by Gay to his duchess, 
or read after dinner to a party composed of Swift, Boling- 
broke, and Congreve. That imaginary audience is always 
looking over his shoulder, applauding a good hit, chuck- 
ling over allusions to the last bit of scandal, and ridiculing 
any extravagance tending to romance or sentimentalism. 

The limitations imposed by such a condition are obvi- 
ous. As men of taste, Pope's friends would make their 
bow to the recognized authorities. They would praise 
Paradise Lost, but a new Milton would be as much out 
of place with them as the real Milton at the court of 
Charles II. They would really prefer to have his verses 
tagged by Dry den, or the Samson polished by Pope. 
They would have ridiculed Wordsworth's mysticism or 
Shelley's idealism, as they laughed at the religious " en- 
thusiasm " of Law or Wesley, or the metaphysical subtle- 



190 POPE. [cuAP. 

ties of Berkeley and Hume. They preferred the philoso- 
phy of the Essay on Man, which might be appropriated 
by a common-sense preacher, or the rhetoric of £loisa and 
Abelard, bits of ■which might be used to excellent effect 
(as, indeed, Pope himself used the peroration) by a fine 
gentleman addressing his gallantry to a contemporary Sap- 
pho. It is only too easy to expose their shallowness, and 
therefore to overlook what was genuine in their feelings. 
After all. Pope's eminent friends Avere no mere tailor's 
blocks for the display of laced coats. Swift and Boling- 
broke were not enthusiasts nor philosophers, but certain- 
ly they were no fools. They liked, in the first place, 
thorough polish. They could appreciate a perfectly turn- 
ed phrase, an epigram which concentrated into a couplet 
a volume of quick observations, a smart saying from 
Rochefoucauld or La Bruyore, which gave an edge to 
worldly wisdom ; a really brilliant utterance of one of 
those maxims, half true and not over profound, but still 
presenting one aspect of life as they saw it, which have 
since grown rather threadbare. This sort of moralizing, 
which is the staple of Pope's epistles upon the ruling pas- 
sion or upon avarice, strikes us now as unpleasantly ob- 
vious. We have got beyond it, and want some more re- 
fined analysis and more complex psychology. Take, for 
example. Pope's epistle to Bathurst, which was in hand 
for two years, and is just 400 lines in length. The sim- 
plicity of the remarks is almost comic. Nobody wants 
to be told now that bribery is facilitated by modern sys- 
tem of credit. 

" Blest paper-credit ! last and best supply 
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly !" 

This triteness blinds us to the singular felicity with 



Tin.] EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 191 

•which the observations have been verified, a felicity which 
makes many of tlie phrases still proverbial. The mark is 
so plain that we do scant justice to the accuracy and pre- 
cision with which it is hit. Yet when we notice how ev- 
ery epithet tells, and how perfectly the writer does Avhat 
he tries to do, we may understand why Pope extorted 
contemporary admiration. We may, for example, read 
once more the familiar passage about Buckingham. The 
picture, such as it is, could not be drawn more strikingly 
with fewer lines. 

" In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung, 
The floors of plaister and the walls of dung, 
On once a flocli-bed, but repair'd with straw. 
With tape-ty'd curtains never meant to draw. 
The George and Garter dangling from that bed, 
Wliere tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, 
Great Villiers lies ! alas, how changed from him, 
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim ! 
Gallant and gay in Cliveden's proud alcove. 
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love ; 
As great as gay, at council in a ring 
Of mimick'd statesmen, and their merry king. 
No wit to flatter left of all his store ! 
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. 
Thus, victor of his health, of fortune, friends. 
And fame, the lord of useless thousands ends." 

It is as graphic as a page of Dickens, and has the ad- 
vantage of being less grotesque, if the sentiment is equally 
obvious. When Pope has made his hit, he does not blur 
the effect by trying to repeat it. 

In these epistles, it must be owned that the sentiment 
is not only obvious but prosaic. The moral maxims are 
delivered like advice offered by one sensible man to an- 
other, not with the impassioned fervour of a prophet. 
9* 



11)2 POPE. [chap. 

Nov can Pope often rise to that level at wliicli alone satire 
is transmuted into the higher class of poetry. To accom- 
plish that feat, if, indeed, it be possible, the poet must not 
simply ridicule the fantastic tricks of poor mortals, but 
show how they appear to the angels who weep over them. 
The petty figures must be projected against a background 
of the infinite, and we must feel the relations of our tiny 
eddies of life to the oceanic currents of human history. 
Pope can never rise above the crowd. lie is looking at 
his equals, not contemplating them from the height which 
reveals their insignificance. The element, which may fair- 
ly be called poetical, is derived from an inferior source ; 
but sometimes has passion enough in it to lift him above 
mere prose. 

In one of his most animated passages, Pope relates liis 
desire to 

" Brand the bold front of shameless guilty men, 
Dash the proud gamester in his gilded car, 
Bare the mean heart that lurks beneath a star." 

For the moment he takes himself seriously ; and, indeed, 
he seems to have persuaded both himself and his friends 
that he was really a great defender of virtue. Arbuthnot 
begged him, almost with his dying breath, to continue his 
" noble disdain and abhorrence of vice," and, with a due 
regard to his own safety, to try rather to reform than 
chastise; and Pope accepts the office ostentatiously. His 
provocation is " the strong antipathy of good to bad," and 
he exclaims, — 

" Yes ! I am proud — I must be proud — to see 
Men not afraid of God afraid of me. 
Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne. 
Yet touch'd and shamed by ridicule alone." 

Tf the sentiment provokes a slight incredulity, it is yet 



VIII.] EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 193 

worth "while to understand its real meaning ; and the ex- 
planation is not very far to seek. 

Pope's best writing, I have said, is the essence of con- 
versation. It has the quick movement, the boldness and 
brilliance, which we suppose to be the attributes of the 
best talk. Of course the apparent facility is due to con- 
scientious labour. In the Prologue and Epilogue and the 
best parts of the imitations of Horace, he shows such con- 
summate mastery of his peculiar style, that we forget the 
monotonous metre. The opening passage, for example, of 
the Prologue is written apparently with the perfect free- 
dom of real dialogue ; in fact, it is of course far more 
pointed and compressed than any dialogue could ever be. 
The dramatic vivacity with which the whole scene is given 
shows that he could use metre as the most skilful perform- 
er could command a musical instrument. Pope, indeed, 
shows, in the Essay on Criticism, that his views about the 
uniformity of sound and sense were crude enough ; they 
are analogous to the tricks by which a musician might de- 
cently imitate the cries of animals or the murmurs of a 
crowd; and his art excludes any attempt at rivalling the 
melody of the great poets who aim at producing a har- 
mony quite independent of the direct meaning of their 
words. I am only speaking of the felicity with which he 
can move in metre, without the slightest appearance of re- 
straint, so as to give a kind of idealized representation of 
the tone of animated verbal intercourse. Whatever comes 
within this province he can produce with admirable fidelity. 
Now, in such talks as we imagine with Swift and Boling- 
broke, we may be quite sure that there would be some 
very forcible denunciation of corruption — corruption be- 
ing of course regarded as due to the diabolical agency of 
Walpole. During his later years, Pope became a friend 



iv)4 rorE. [chap. 

of all the Opposition clique, which was undcrnuning the 
power of the great minister. In liis last letters to Swift, 
I'opc speaks of the new circle of promising patriots who 
were rising round liini, and from whom he entertained 
hopes of the regeneration of tliis corrupt country. Senti- 
ments of this kind were the staple talk of the circles in 
which he moved ; and all the young men of promise be- 
lieved, or persuaded themselves to fancy, that a political 
millennium would follow the downfall of Walpole. Pope, 
susceptible as always to the influences of his social sur- 
roundings, took in all this, and delighted in figuring him- 
self as the prophet of the new era and the denouncer of 
wickedness in high places. He sees " old England's gen- 
ius " di'agged in the dust, hears the black trumpet of vice 
proclaiming that " not to be corrupted is the shame," and 
declares that he will draw the last pen for freedom, and 
use his " sacred weapon " in truth's defence. 

To imagine Pope at his best, we must place ourselves in 
Twickenham on some fine day, when the long disease has 
relaxed its grasp for a moment ; when he has taken a turn 
through his garden, and comforted his poor frame with 
potted lampreys and a glass or two from his frugal pint. 
Suppose two or three friends to be sitting with him, the 
stately Bolingbroke or the mercurial Bathurst, with one of 
the patriotic hopes of mankind, Marchmont or Lyttelton, 
to stimulate his ardour, and the amiable Spence, or Mrs. 
Patty Blount to listen reverentially to his morality. Let 
the conversation kindle into vivacity, and host and guests 
fall into a friendly rivalry, whetting each other's wits by 
lively repartee, and airing the Uttle fragments of worldly 
wisdom Avhich pass muster for profound observation at 
Court ; for a time they talk platitudes, though striking out 
now and then brilliant flashes, as from the collision of pol- 



VIII.] EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 195 

islied rapier.s ; they diverge, perhaps, into literature, and 
Pope shines in discussing the secrets of the art to which 
his whole life has been devoted with untiring fidelity. 
Suddenly the mention of some noted name provokes a 
startling outburst of personal invective from Pope ; liis 
friends judiciously divert the current of wrath into a new 
channel, and he becomes for the moment a generous 
patriot declaiming against the growth of luxury ; the men- 
tion of some sympathizing friend brings out a compliment, 
so exquisitely turned, as to be a permanent title of honour, 
conferred by genius instead of power; or the thought of 
his parents makes his voice tremble, and his eyes shine 
with pathetic softness; and you forgive the occasional af- 
fectation which you can never quite forget, or even the 
occasional gros.sness or harshness of sentiment which con- 
trasts so strongly with the superficial polish. A genuine 
report of even the best conversation would be intolerably 
prosy and unimaginative. But imagine the very pith and 
essence of such talk brought to a focus, concentrated into 
the smallest possible space with the infinite dexterity of a 
thoroughly trained hand, and you have the kind of writing 
in which Pope is unrivalled ; polished prose with occa- 
sional gleams of genuine poetry — the Epistle to Arbuth- 
not and the Epilogue to the Satires. 

One point remains to be briefly noticed. The virtue on 
which Pope prided himself was correctness ; and I have 
interpreted this to mean the quality which is gained by in- 
cessant labour, guided by quick feeling, and always under 
the strict supervision of common-sense. The next literary 
revolution led to a depreciation of this quality. Warton 
(like Macaulay long afterwards) argued that in a higher 
sense, the Elizabethan poets were really as correct as Pope. 
Their poetry embodied a higher and more complex law. 



196 POPE. [chap. 

tliougli it neglected the narrow cut-and-dried precepts rec- 
ognized in the Queen Anne period. The new school came 
to express too undiscriminating a contempt for the whole 
theory and practice of Pope and his followers. Pope, said 
Cowper, and a thousand critics have echoed Lis words, 

" Made poetry a mere mecliauic art, 
And every warbler had his tune by heart." 

Without discussing the wider question, I may here 
briefly remark that this judgment, taken absolutely, gives 
a very false impression of Pope's artistic quality. Pope 
is undoubtedly monotonous. Except in one or two lyrics, 
such as the Ode on St. Cello's Day^ which must be reck- 
oned amongst his ntter failures, lie invariably employed 
the same metre. The discontinuity of his style, and the 
strict rules which he adopted, tend to disintegrate his 
poems. They are a series of brilliant passages, often of 
brilliant couplets, stuck together in a conglomerate ; and 
as the inferior connecting matter decays, the interstices 
open and allow the whole to fall into ruin. To read a se- 
ries of such couplets, each complete in itself, and each so 
constructed as to allow of a very small variety of form, is 
naturally to receive an impression of monotony. Pope's 
antitheses fall into a few common forms, which are re- 
peated over and over again, and seem copy to each other. 
And, in a sense, such work can be very easily imitated. 
A very inferior artist can obtain most of his efforts, and 
all the external qualities of his style. One ten-syllabled 
rhyming couplet, with the whole sense strictly confined 
Avitliin its limits, and allowing only of sucb variety as fol- 
lows from changing the pauses, is undoubtedly very much 
like another. And accordingly one may read in any col- 
lection of British poets innumerable pages of versification 



vi„.j EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 197 

Avhich — if you do not look too close — are exactly like 
Pope. All poets who have any marked style are more or 
less iraitable ; in the present age of revivals, a clever ver- 
sifier is capable of adopting the manners of his leading 
contemporaries, or that of any poet from Spenser to Shel- 
ley or Keats. The quantity of work scarcely distinguish- 
able from that of the worst passages in Mr. Tennyson, Mr. 
Browning, and Mr. Swinburne, seems to be limited only 
by the supply of stationery at the disposal of practised 
performers. That which makes the imitations of Pope 
prominent is partly the extent of his sovereignty ; the vast 
number of writers who confined themselves exclusively to 
his style ; and partly the fact that what is easily imitable 
in him is so conspicuous an element of the whole. The 
rigid framework which he adopted is easily definable with 
mathematical precision. The difference between the best 
work of Pope and the ordinary work of his followers is 
confined within narrow limits, and not easily perceived at 
a glance. The difference between blank verse in the hands 
of its few masters and m the hands of a third-rate imita- 
tor strikes the ear in every line. Far more is left to the 
individual idiosyncrasy. But it does not at all follow, and 
in fact it is quite untrue, that the distinction which turns 
on an apparently insignificant element is therefore unim- 
portant. The value of all good work ultimately depends 
on touches so fine as to elude the sight. And the proof 
is that although Pope was so constantly imitated, no later 
and contemporary writer succeeded in approaching his ex- 
cellence. Young, of the Night Thoughts, was an extraor- 
dinarily clever writer and talker, even if he did not (as one 
of his hearers asserts) eclipse Voltaire by the brilliance of 
his conversation. Young's satires show abundance of wit, 
and one may not be able to say at a glance in what they 



198 POPE. [chap. 

are inferior to Pope. Yet tliey Lave liopelessly perished, 
whilst Pope's work remains classical. Of all the crowd 
of eighteenth-century writers in Pope's manner, only two 
made an approach to him worth notice. Johnson's Vani- 
ty of Human Wishes surpasses Pope in general sense of 
power, and Goldsmith's two poems in the same style have 
phrases of a higher order than Pope's. But even these 
poems have not made so deep a mark. In the last gener- 
ation, Gilford's Bavlad and Mceviad, and Byron's English 
Bards and Scotch Reviewers^ were clever reproductions of 
the manner ; but Gifford is already unreadable, and By- 
ron is pale beside his original ; and, therefore, making f nil 
allowance for Pope's monotony, and the tiresome promi- 
nence of certain mechanical effects, we must, I think, ad- 
mit that he has after all succeeded in doing with unsur- 
passable excellence what innumerable rivals have failed to 
do as well. The explanation is — if the phrase explains 
anything — that he was a man of genius, or that he brought 
to a task, not of the highest class, a keenness of sensibili- 
ty, a conscientious desire to do his very best, and a capaci- 
ty for taking pains with his work, which enabled him to 
be as indisputably the first in his own peculiar line, as our 
greatest men have been in far more lofty undertakings. 

The man who could not publish pastorals without get- 
ting into quarrels, was hardly likely to become a professed 
satirist without giving offence. Besides numerous stabs 
administered to old enemies. Pope opened some fresh ani- 
mosities by passages in these poems. Some pointed ridi- 
cule was aimed at Montagu, Earl of Halifax, in the Pro- 
logue ; for there can be no doubt that Halifax' was point- 
ed out in the character of Bufo. Pope told a story in 

' Ro.scoe's attempt at a denial was conclusively answered by Bowles 
in one of his pamphlets. 



viiLJ EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 199 

later days of an introduction to Halifax, the great patron 
of the early years of the century, who wished to hear him 
read his Homer. After the reading Halifax suggested that 
one passage should be improved. Pope retired rather 
puzzled by his vague remarks, but, by Garth's advice, re- 
turned some time afterwards, and read the same passage 
•without alteration. "Ay, now, Mr. Pope," said Halifax, 
"they are perfectly right; nothing can be better!" This 
little incident perhaps suggested to Pope that Halifax was 
a humbug, and there seems, as already noticed, to have 
been some difficulty about the desired dedication of the 
Iliad. Though Halifax had been dead for twenty years 
when the Prologue appeared. Pope may have been in the 
right in satirizing the pompous would-be patron, from 
whom he had received nothing, and whose pretences he 
had seen through. But the bitterness of the attack is dis- 
agreeable when we add that Pope paid Halifax high com- 
pliments in the preface to the Iliad, and boasted of his 
friendship, shortly after the satire, in the Epilogue to the 
Satires. A more disagreeable affair at the moment was 
the description, in the Epistle on Taste, of Canons, the 
splendid seat of the Duke of Chandos. Chandos, being 
still alive, resented the attack, and Pope had not the cour- 
age to avow his meaning, which might in that case have 
been justifiable. He declared to Burlington (to whom the 
epistle was addressed), and to Chandos, that he had not 
intended Canons, and tried to make peace by saying in 
another epistle that " gracious Chandos is beloved at sight." 
This exculpation, says Johnson, was received by the duke 
" Avith great magnanimity, as by a man who accepted his 
excuse, without believing his professions." Nobody, in 
fact, believed, and even Warburton let out the secret by a 
comic oversight. Pope had prophesied in his poem that 



200 POPE. [chap. 

another age would sec the destruction of " Timon's Villa," 
when laughing Ceres would reassume the land. Had he 
lived three years longer, said Warburton in a note, Pope 
■would have seen his prophecy fulfilled, namely, by the de- 
struction of Canons. The note was corrected, but the ad- 
mission that Canons belonged to Tinion had been made. 

To such accusations Pope had a general answer. He 
described the type, not the individual. The fault was 
with the public, who chose to fit the cap. His friend i*e- 
monstrates in the Epilogue against his personal satire. 
" Come on, then. Satire, general, unconfined," exclaims the 
poet, 

" Spread thy broad wing and souse on all the kind 

******* 

Ye reverend atheists. (Friend) Scandal ! name them ! who ? 
(Pope) Why, that's the thing you bade me not to do. 
Who starved a sister, who forswore a debt, 
I never named ; the town's inquiring yet. 
The pois'ning dame — (F.) You mean — (P.) I don't. (F.) 
You do. 
(P.) Sec, now, I keep the secret, and not you !" 

It must, in fact, be admitted that from the purely artis- 
tic point of view Pope is right. Prosaic commentators are 
always asking. Who is meant by a poet ? as though a poem 
were a legal document. It may be interesting, for various 
purposes, to know who was in the writer's mind, or what 
fact suggested the general picture. But we have no right 
to look outside the poem itself, or to infer anything not 
within the four corners of the statement. It matters not 
for such purposes whether there was, or was not, any real 
person corrcspondiHg to Sir Balaam, to whom his wife said, 
when he was enriched by Cornish wreckers, " live like 
yourself," 



viii.j EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 201 

" When lo ! two puddings smoked upon the board," 
in place of the previous one on Sabbath days. Nor does 
it even matter whether Atticus meant Addison, or Sappho 
Lady Mary. The satire is equally good, whether its ob- 
jects are mere names or realities. 

But the moral question is quite distinct. In that case 
we must ask whether Pope used words calculated or in- 
tended to fix an imputation upon particular people. 
Whether he did it in prose or verse, the offence Avas the 
same. In many cases he gives real names, and in many 
others gives unmistakable indications, which must have 
fixed his satire to particular people. If he had written 
Addison for Atticus (as he did at first), or Lady Mary for 
Sappho, or Halifax for Bufo, the insinuation could not have 
been clearer. His attempt to evade his responsibility was 
a mere equivocation — a device which he seems to have pre- 
ferred to direct lying. The character of Bufo might be 
equally suitable to others; but no reasonable man could 
doubt that every one would fix it upon Halifax. In some 
cases — possibly in that of Chandos — he may have thought 
that his language was too general to apply, and occasional- 
ly it seems that he sometimes tried to evade consequences 
by adding some inconsistent characteristic to his portraits. 

I say this, because I am here forced to notice the worst 
of all the imputations upon Pope's character. The epistle 
on the characters of women now includes the famous lines 
on Atossa, which did not appear till after Pope's death.' 
They were (in 1746) at once applied to the famous Sarah, 
Duchess of Marlborough ; and a story immediately became 
current that the duchess had paid Pope 1000?. to suppress 
them, but that he preserved them, with a view to their ul- 
timate publication. This story was repeated by Warton 
' On this subject Mr. Dilke's Papers of a Critic. 



202 POPE. [chap. 

and by Walpole ; it has been accepted by Mr. Carrutliers, 
who suggests, by way of palliation, that Pope was desirous 
at the time of providing for Martha Blount, and probably 
took the sum in order to buy an annuity for her. Now, if 
the story were proved, it must be admitted that it would 
reveal a baseness in Pope which Avould be worthy only of 
the lowest and most venal literary marauders. No more 
disgraceful imputation could have been made upon Curll, 
or Curll's miserable dependents. A man who could so 
prostitute his talents must have been utterly vile. Pope 
has sins enough to answer for; but his other meannesses 
Avere either sacrifices to his morbid vanity, or (like his of- 
fence against Swift, or his lies to Aaron Hill and Chandos) 
collateral results of spasmodic attempts to escape from hu- 
miliation. In money-matters he seems to have been gen- 
erally independent. He refused gifts from his rich friends, 
and confuted the rather similar calumny that he had re- 
ceived 500^. from the Duke of Chandos, If the account 
rested upon mere contemporary scandal, we might reject 
it on the ground of its inconsistency with his known char- 
acter, and its likeness to other fabrications of his enemies. 
There is, however, further evidence. It is such evidence 
as would, at most, justify a verdict of " not proven " in a 
court of justice. But the critic is not bound by legal 
rules, and has to say what is the most probable solution, 
without fear or favour. 

I cannot here go into the minute details. This much, 
however, may be taken as established. Pope was printing 
a new edition of his works at the time of his death. He 
had just distributed to his friends some copies of the 
Ethic Epistles, and in those copies the Atossa appeared. 
Bolingbrokc, to whoui Pope had left his nnpublished pa- 
pers, discovered it, and immediately identified it with the 



VIII.] EPISTLES AND SATIRES. 203 

duchess, who (it must be noticed) was still alive. He wrote 
to Marchmont, one of Pope's executors, that there could 
be " no excuse for Pope's design of publishing it after the 
favour you and I know." This is further explained by a 
note added in pencil by Marchmont's executor, "1000^.;" 
and the son of this executor, who published the March- 
mont papers, says that this was the favour received by 
Pope from the duchess. This, however, is far from prov- 
ing a direct bribe. It is, in fact, hardly conceivable that 
the duchess and Pope should have made such a bargain in 
direct black and white, and equally inconceivable that two 
men like Bolingbroke and Marchmont should have been 
privy to such a transaction, and spoken of it in such terms. 
Bolingbroke thinks that the favour received laid Pope 
under an obligation, but evidently does not think that it 
implied a contract. Mr. Dilke has further pointed out 
that there are many touches in the character which dis- 
tinctly apply to the Duchess of Buckingham, with whom 
Pope had certainly quarrelled, and which will not apply to 
the Duchess of Marlborough, who had undoubtedly made 
friends with him during the last years of his life. AVal- 
polc again tells a story, partly confirmed by Warton, that 
Pope had shown the character to each duchess (Warton 
says only to Marlborough), saying that it was meant for 
the other. The Duchess of Buckingham, he says, believed 
him; the other had more sense, and paid him 1000/. to 
suppress it. Walpolc is no trustworthy authority ; but 
the coincidence implies at least that such a story was soon 
current. 

The most probable solution must conform to these data. 
Pope's Atossa was a portrait which would fit either lady, 
though it would be naturally applied to the most famous. 
It seems certain, also, that Pope had received some favours 



204 POPE. [chap. tiii. 

(possibly tlie 1000?. on some occasion unknown) from the 
Duchess of Marlborough, which Avas felt by his friends to 
make any attack upon her unjustifiable. We can scarcely 
believe that there should have been a direct compact of 
the kind described. If Pope had been a person of duly 
sensitive conscience he would have suppressed his work. 
But to suppress anything that he had written, and espe- 
cially a passage so carefully laboured, was always agony 
to him. lie preferred, as we may perhaps conjecture, to 
settle in his own mind that it would fit the Duchess of 
Buckingham, and possibly introduce some of the touches 
to which Mr. Dilke refers. He thought it suflicieutly dis- 
guised to be willing to publish it whilst the person with 
whom it was naturally identified was still alive. Had she 
complained, he would have relied upon those touches, and 
liave equivocated as he equivocated to Hill and Chandos. 
He always seems to have fancied that he could conceal 
himself by very thin disguises. But he ought to have 
known, and perhaps did know, that it would be immedi- 
ately applied to the person who had conferred an obliga- 
tion. From that guilt no hypothesis can relieve him ; but 
it is certainly not proved, and seems, on the Avhole, im- 
probable that he was so base as the concessions of his 
biographers would indicate. 



CHAPTER IX. 



The last satires were published in 1738. Six years of life 
still remained to Pope; bis intellectual powers were still 
vigorous, and his pleasure in their exercise had not ceased. 
The only fruit, however, of his labours during this period 
was the fourth book of the Dunciad. He spent much 
time upon bringing out new editions of his works, and 
upon the various intrigues connected with the Swift cor- 
respondence. But his health was beginning to fail. The 
ricketty framework was giving way, and failing to answer 
the demands of the fretful and excitable brain. In the 
spring of 1744 the poet was visibly breaking up; he suf- 
fered from dropsical asthma, and seems to have made mat- 
ters worse by putting himself in the hands of a notorious 
quack — a Dr. Thomson. The end was evidently near as 
he completed his fifty-sixth year. Friends, old and new, 
were often in attendance. Above all, Bolingbroke, the 
venerated friend of thirty years' standing; Patty Blount, 
the woman whom he loved best ; and the excellent Spence, 
who preserved some of the last words of the dying man. 
The scene, as he saw it, was pathetic ; perhaps it is not less 
pathetic to us, for whom it has another side as of grim 
tragic humour. 

Three weeks before his death Pope was sending off 
copies of the Uthic Epistles — apparently with the Atossa 



206 POrE. [chap. 

lines — to Lis friends, "Here I am, like Socrates," he 
said, " dispensing my morality amongst my friends just as 
I am dying." Spence watched him as anxiously as his 
disciples watched Socrates. He was still sensible to kind- 
ness. AVhencver Miss Blount came in, the failing spirits 
rallied for a moment. lie was always saying something 
kindly of his friends, " as if his humanity had outlasted 
Lis understanding." Bolingbrokc, when Spence made the 
remark, said that he had never known a man with so ten- 
der a Leart for Lis own friends or for mankind. " I Lave 
known Lim," Le added, " tLese tLirty years, and value my- 
self more for tLat man's love tlian — " and his voice was 
lost in tears. At moments Pope could still be playful. 
" Here I am, dying of a hundred good symptoms," Le re- 
plied to some flattering report, but Lis mind was beginning 
to wander. He complained of seeing things as througli 
a curtain. " What's that ?" he said, pointing to the air, 
and then, with a smile of great pleasure, added softly, 
"'twas a vision." Ills religious sentiments still edified Lis 
Learers. " I am so certain," Le said, " of the soul's being 
immortal, that I seem to feel it within me, as it were by 
intuition ;" and early one morning Le rose from bed and 
tried to begin an essay upon immortality, apparently in a 
state of semi-delirium. On Lis last day lie sacrificed, as 
CLesterfield ratLer cynically observes, Lis cock to rEscula- 
pius. Hookc, a zealous Catliolic friend, asked Lim wLetli- 
cr Le would not send for a priest. " 1 do not suppose 
tLat it is essential," said Pope, " but it will look riglit, and 
I Lcartily tLank you for putting me in mind of it." A 
priest was brought, and Pope received the last sacraments 
witL great fervour and resignation. Next day, on May 30, 
1744, Le died so peacefully tLat Lis friends could not de- 
termine tLe exact moment of deatL. 



IX.] THE END. 20*7 

It was a soft and touching end ; and yet we must once 
more look at the other side. AVarburton and Bolingbroke 
both appear to have been at the side of the dying man, 
and before very long they were to be quarrelling over his 
grave. Pope's will showed at once that his quarrels were 
hardly to end with his death. He had quarrelled, though 
the quarrel had been made up, with the generous Allen, 
for some cause not ascertainable, except that it arose from 
the mutual displeasure of Mrs. Allen and Miss Blount. It 
is pleasant to notice that, in the course of the quarrel, 
Pope mentioned Warburton, in a letter to Miss Blount, as 
a sneaking parson ; but Warburton was not aware of the 
flash of sarcasm. Pope, as Johnson puts it, " polluted his 
will with female resentment." He left a legacy of 150/. 
to Allen, being, as he added, the amount received from his 
friend — for himself or for charitable purposes; and re- 
quested Allen, if he should refuse the legacy for himself, 
to pay it to the Bath Hospital. Allen adopted this sug- 
gestion, saying quietly that Pope had ahvays been a bad 
accountant, and would have come nearer the truth if he 
had added a cypher to the figures. 

Another fact came to light, which produced a fiercer 
outburst. Pope, it was found, had printed a whole edi- 
tion (1500 copies) of the Patriot King, Bolingbroke's 
most polished work. The motive could have been nothing 
but a desire to preserve to posterity what Pope considered 
to be a monument worthy of the highest genius, and was 
so far complimentary to Bolingbroke. Bofingbroke, how- 
ever, considered it as an act of gross treachery. Pope 
had received the work on condition of keeping it strictly 
private, and showing it to only a few friends. Moreover, 
he had corrected it, arranged it, and altered or omitted 
passages according to his own taste, which naturally did 
10 



208 rOFE. [chap. 

not suit the author's. In 1749 Bolingbroke gave a copy 
to Mallet for publication, and prefixed an angry statement 
to expose the breach of trust of " a man on whom the au- 
thor thought he could entirely depend." Warburton rush- 
ed to the defence of Pope and the demolition of Boling- 
broke. A savage controversy followed, which survives 
only in the title of one of Bolingbroke's pamphlets, A 
Familiar Epistle to the most Impudent Man Living — a 
transparent paraphrase for Warburton. Pope's behaviour 
is too much of a piece with previous underhand transac- 
tions, but scarcely deserves further condemnation. 

A single touch remains. Pope was buried, by his own 
directions, in a vault in Twickenham Church, near the 
monument erected to his parents. It contained a simple 
inscription, ending with the Avords, ^^ Farcntibus bene me- 
rentibus Jtlius fecitP To this, as he directed in his will, 
was to be added simply " ct sibiP This was done ; but 
seventeen years afterwards the clumsy Warburton erected 
in the same church another monument to Pope himself, 
with this stupid inscription. Poeta loquitur. 

'■'■ For one tvho would not be buried in Westminster Abbe)/. 

Heroes and kings, your distance keep ! 

In peace let one poor poet sleep 

Wlio never flattcr'd folks like 3-ou ; 

Let Horace blush, and Virgil too." 

Most of us can tell from experience how grievously our 
posthumous ceremonials often jar upon the tendercst feel- 
ings of survivors. Pope's valued friends seem to have 
done their best to surround the last scene of his life with 
painful associations ; and Pope, alas ! was an unconscious 
accomplice. To us of a later generation it is impossible 
to close this strange history without a singular mixture of 
feelings. Admiration for the extraordinary literary talents, 



IX.] THE END. 209 

respect for tlie energy wliicli, under all disadvantages of 
liealth and position, turned these talents to the best ac- 
count; love of the real tender-heartedness Avhich formed 
the basis of the man's character ; pity for the many suffer- 
ings to ■which his morbid sensitiveness exposed him ; con- 
tempt for the meannesses into which he was hurried ; rid- 
icule for the insatiable vanity which prompted his most 
degrading subterfuges; horror for the bitter animosities 
which must have tortured the man who cherished them 
even more than his victims — are suggested simultaneously 
by the name of Pope. As we look at him in one or oth- 
er aspect, each feeling may come uppermost in turn. The 
most abiding sentiment — when we think of him as a lit- 
erary phenomenon — is admiration for the exquisite skill 
which enabled him to discharge a function, not of the 
highest kind, with a perfection rare in any department of 
literature. It is more difficult to say what will be the final 
element in our feeling about the man. Let us hope that 
it may be the pity which, after a certain lapse of years, we 
may be excused from conceding to the victim of moral as 
well as physical diseases. 



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FORSTER'S LIFE OF DEAN SWIFT. The Early Life of Jonathan 
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GREEN'S ENGLISH PEOPLE. History of the English People. 
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SHORT'S NORTH AMERICANS OF ANTIQUITY. The North 
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Cloth, $3 00. 

SQUIER'S PERU. Peru: Incidents of Travel and Exploration in 
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MYERS'S LOST EMPIRES. Remains of Lost Empires : Sketches 
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HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES. View of the State of Europe during 
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HALLAM'S LITERATURE. Introduction to the Literature of Eu- 
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SCHWEINFURTH'S HEART OF AFRICA. The Heart of Africa. 
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M'CLINTOCK & STRONG'S CYCLOPAEDIA. Cyclopaedia of Bib- 
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MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM: Lectures Delivered at 
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MOSHEIM'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, Ancient and Modern ; 
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1826, by C. Coote, LL.D. 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, 4 00 ; Sheep, $5 00. 

HARPER'S NEW CLASSICAL LIBRARY. Literal Translations. 

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PARTON'S CARICATURE. Caricature and Other Comic Art, in 
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VINCENT'S LAND OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT. The Land 
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China (18Y1-2). By Frank Vincent, Jr. Illustrated with Maps, 
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LIVINGSTONE'S SOUTH AFRICA. Missionary Travels and Re- 
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of Good Hope to Loanda on the West Coast ; thence across the 
Continent, down the River Zambesi, to the Eastern Ocean. By 
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LIVINGSTONE'S ZAMBESI. Narrative of an Expedition to the 
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LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. The Last Journals of David 
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GROTE'S HISTORY OF GREECE. 12 vols., 12mo, Cloth, $18 00 ; 
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RECLUS'S EARTH. The Earth : a Descriptive History of the Phe- 
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RECLUS'S OCEAN. The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life. Being the 
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VAN-LENNEP'S BIBLE LANDS. Bible Lands : their Modern Cus- 
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NORDHOFF'S COMMUNISTIC SOCIETIES OF THE UNITED 
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NORDHOFF'S CALIFORNIA. California: for Health, Pleasure, 
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NORDHOFF'S NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AND THE SAND- 
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SHAKSPEARE. The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare. 
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STRICKLAND'S (Miss) QUEENS OF SCOTLAND. Lives of the 
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BAKER'S ISMAILTA. Ismailia : a Narrative of the Expedition to 
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BOSWELL'S JOHNSON. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., in- 
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SAMUEL JOHNSON: HIS WORDS AND HIS WAYS; what he 
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JOHNSON'S COMPLETE WORKS. The Works of Samuel John- 
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GRIFFIS'S JAPAN. The Mikado's Empire: Book I. History of Ja- 
pan, from 660 B.C. to 18*72 A. I). Book II. Personal Experiences, 
Observations, and Studies in Japan, 1870-1 874. By William El- 
liot Griffis, A.m., late of the Imperial University of Tokio, Japan. 
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